When Wisdom of Elderly Was Medicine

There was a time when there were hardly any doctors in Kashmir valley. Hospitals were least known and visited. No doubt, today, healthcare is a priority, and like other states J&K too gives special attention to healthcare facilities. Yet, long ago, we didn’t have hospitals and doctors, so amply available as we have nowadays. The prosperity in the healthcare system spotlighted late. Now we have health centers everywhere, even medical colleges are associated with every district hospital. It’s a secondary question that the long queues of patients in these hospitals are not declining. Who then cared people in that time? Undoubtedly, our elders in both, towns and villages.

Benefiting people in a myriad of ways while expecting nothing in return, they had their own expertise of traditional remedies as timeless cure to heal the society. Of course, has medical science progressed, yet, we can’t forget our elders’ stories of traditional ways of healing, hope, and wisdom.

       There were quite many names that healed people in the vicinity, most of them have flattened; yet, their loving memory of healing people is a cherished legacy. I wish I had golden words with which I would let my ideas marinate to carefully paint the narrative of elderly remedies. I recall, we had a famous Orthopedist in our locality namely Ashur Parray from Saripara, Rafiabad who usually treated fractures and problems with the bones. No Ortho patient, those days, in our area had to turn over to Bone & Joint Hospital, Barzulla, Srinagar. People would visit and get recovered within days. His faith and fame had earned him a name in the area as Ang-Watt, the one who joins the bones. I vividly recall an episode of my childhood when my right ankle had got fractured. Every one in my village suggested my father that the biggest Barzulla Hospital is Ashur Parray at Saripara.

    People in Rafiabad will never forget the leeches’ therapy, locally referred to as Daerka (jonkain) of Abdul Ahad Shah from Batsuma. He used leeches, traditionally for sucking blood from the wounds of people. Today, leeches are used for medical purposes in modern science, particularly in reconstructive surgery and to treat degenerative diseases.

   One more was Abdul Ahad Sheikh aka Ahad Mukdum (numberdar) at Rawoocha who was a key healer for Jaundice (Kaambal in Kashmiri) in his time. The legacy now stands retained by his son Abdul Khaliq Sheikh who carries on his father’s Hikma by treating jaundice patients with spiritual practice mostly on Sundays, by chanting mantras (a scared utterance) while mixing water with oil in a terracotta lid called Aanuet in front of a patient, along with some precautions for him, such as avoiding the fried and oily food vis-à-vis Chuk Mudur (sour and sweet).

  Kanegur, another elderly namely Ghulam Nabi from Sonwane, Handwara would usually visit my village in autumn season to check out villagers’ ears. He was not lesser than today’s Otolaryngologist, or ENT. All he carried with him to execute his task of examining ears was a spatula with which he did miracles. I still remember how one day, he took out a pit (hard seed of cherry) from my mother’s ear which had by mistake stuck up in her ear during childhood.

  Not only were men, but elderly women equally served people to heal out. Though I can’t mention them all (due to space constraints); yet, my grandmother, Zoon Ded, stands atop who helped people in a multiple ways while expecting nothing in return. There were hardly any Gynecologists in villages then. The word ‘haspatal’ would send shivers down the patient’s spine. Taking him to the hospital was like taking him to a slaughterhouse. Being a famous warien (midwife) in the vicinity, she helped many women. Today, midwifery is taken as a professional nursing course but in that time, it was least introduced. Every year, pregnant women would deliver babies in her presence at their edifices. And, if anything, she was given by them, post pregnancy; it was nothing else than a Batte Traem (plate of Kashmiri wazwan) which they offered to her at their kids’ Aqiqah (the tradition of the sacrifice of an animal on the occasion of a child’s birth). Maternity deaths were rare then in my grandma’s time. Terms like Caesar, Gynae, etc. were not heard at all. Though, at present, we have hundreds of doctors with great healthcare in place, yet, maternity mortality-rate doesn’t decrease. In that time, normal deliveries would occur. Mothers would deliver babies with no concept of diseases like thyroid, cholesterol, diabetes, stroke, cirrhosis, cancers, etc.

  From the adjoining villages, people also visited many elderly women in my Mohalla for various health problems. I can’t forget Zareef Appa’s Datur Dohu (smoke produced from herb, Datura Stramonium) to protect teeth from different infections. She’d burn Datura seed by mixing it with homemade ghee on a hot knife under patient’s wide open mouth, till germs would fall down in a water container kept underneath.

  Healing people with traditional ways of treatment, devoid of any social bias or religious differences; there are also many successful stories associated with them concerning the treatment of patients suffering from different diseases. As soon as the patients who were at the verge of death came under the influence of those elderly, they got fully recovered by the grace of almighty Allah. May God (SWT) bless them all.

Manzoor Akash is educationist and author from Rafiabad