A False Step

                        A false step

It was December, on what was probably the coldest day of the year. I had just appeared on NDTV and was in a somewhat euphoric state of mind. The escort girl whispered something about going by a shortcut to the parking area where their vehicle was parked.

We started to cross a hall in which carpenters had been at work during the day

“Mind your step, Sir”, the girl whispered, even as I put my foot forward on a loose piece of timber and twisted something near the knee. That was the false step.

That one step cost me dearly, both in pain and expense.

I started limping a little. When it persisted, Raj insisted that I   consult a specialist. We decided to go to an Ayurveda clinic, and after a bit of research discovered Santhigiri in Malaviya Nagar. They had various kinds of   oil massage, as practised in Kerala. The vaid  in charge sold us two courses on rejuvenation and revitalisation, which would incidentally also rid me of the pain near the knee.

Three weeks later, I had undergone vigorous Kerala massaging and was Rs. 25,000 lighter in the pocket. Towards the end of the period I said I was feeling better, for fear that he might make me undergo a few more rejuvenation programmes.

After a while, I started seeing Swami Ramdev’s lectures on Aastha channel at 4-30 a.m. His yogic exercises helped me enormously in other aspects of life like getting up early, practising five different forms of meditation and some excellent exercises to become slimmer and generally tone up the body and mind.

But alas! The pain in the knee still persisted.

After a while, Raj happened to talk to a neighbour’s daughter at a wedding. The girl inquired politely why uncle was limping. When Raj unburdened her soul, she promptly revealed that she was now running a physiotherapy clinic at N Block, GK I.

Very soon thereafter we were at Meera Kak’s Clinic and I was booked for a course , which after a suitable neighbourly rebate cost us Rs. 15000 per course.

I must say in retrospect that Meera’s formula for combating pain is a composite one. She uses all the known techniques, like exercises in the gym, yogic asanas, hot and cold compresses, special contortionist postures    by her dedicated and muscular team of female wrestlers

..They even went to the extent of teaching me how to walk.

The girl prompted: ” Keep your neck straight, inhale a chest size of 56, look at a point 200 yards ahead, order your legs to take a long step,  lift your right foot up and put it smartly forward and mentally sing the lines “Nanha munna rahi hoon, desh ka sipahi hoon…”

Two courses later, I had tired of the whole regimen and lapsed into sleeping at home and a course of benign neglect. One day, Papoo came to our house and saw me limping. He waxed eloquent on the merits of Anand Purohit, who had magic fingers and made your pain disappear instantly. He had cured his tennis elbow in no time.

I succumbed to Papoo’s propaganda.Anand manipulated the leg, the calf etc .and on my third visit asked me to ascend the stairs. I did it with ease.Anand flashed his famous smile and said, “it is as I thought. There is nothing wrong with the knee. You have only to order your leg to move.”

My wife , who has always suspected that I have no pain and  it is all a figment of my imagination concurred fully with him. After eight sittings each costing Rs. 800/- I gave up the treatment.

My latest experiment is with a young dedicated architect who practices Sujok,the Korean art of acupuncture. This is Parul Maheshwari who has converted his basement in Saket into a physiotherapy clinic. He claims that the Sujok is the most complete system of therapy invented by man. He takes a computer snapshot of the patient’s nervous system through an Accugraph and then measures the progress over a period of time.

My initial accugraph gave me a composite score of 65%. In the last two months, the score has come up to   92% Thus there is great improvement.

“sBut the pain in the knee still persists,” I whine, at which comment he flashes a smile. ”You will see the improvement. Let the nervous balance in the body be first restored.”

Parul does not charge a fee. So I still visit him religiously at 7 a.m. every morning.

What do I have to lose?