Now starts the step by step story of my journey in pursuing “svadhyay”. Between the age of 5 to 10 years, children played “gulli-danda” or “kanche” or flew kites, all my innate self drove me to collect herbs, plant flowers, fruits and roots, macerate them and put them in one “pateela” discarded by my mother. In the name of fire, I used to make a “desi chulha” by using three bricks in stand on position. Collect dried leaves and dried twigs from a number of trees growing in our house. In the boiling cauldron, some salt and some sarson oil was put to prepare medicine, which in my juvenile mind, perceived to cure humans and cattle of their ailments.

Apart from my innocuous shenanigans with plants, I took to reading “Satyarth Prakash” by Swami Daya Nand, Books by Swami Vivekanand, Swami Ram Tirath and Swami Satya Nand. These books was readily available in my home as my parents used to read them often. In my family three brothers and one sister were elder to me and only one brother was younger to me. By a quirk of circumstances, the age difference between me and a brother elder to me and the brother younger to me was seven years in both cases. So I was in this manner a loner, no usual compatibility between lesser age differences was thus there in my case.

Most of my schooling was in Arya High School, Ludhiana, where “dharma shiksha” , “havans”, conservative Hindu Family teachings were the norm. Strict discipline in the family, profound respect for elders and benign attitude towards youngers was inculcated. In the primary classes, the story of young Yudhisther (the eldest of Pandava Brothers) stuck in my mind so tenaciously that I could never forget it till now. The story relates that while Pandava Brothers were taught the first lesson, which incidentally happened to be from verse 1.11.1, of the Taittiriya Upanishad, that is, the final chapter in the education of a student, which reminded a student to Speak the Satya, follow the Dharma, from Svadhyaya never cease. “सत्यंवद। धर्मंचर। स्वाध्यायान्माप्रमदः।

Interestingly, while all his four brothers carried on further with other lessons taught, Yudhishther just got stuck with the the said first lesson. When reprimanded by his Guru for getting stuck with the first lesson only, Yudhishter said that till he actually imbibes these words in his life, how could he go any further. The whole world now knows him as Dharam Raj.  To emulate or rather to fructify the exalted experiment of Dharam Raj Yudhishther, I chose to shun greed in all forms in my life’s journey. Since my childhood I avoided greed in any manifestation and this has served my sheet anchor around which all my mundane activities so far have taken shape. Shunning greed and continuing with my “svadhayay” of wide ranging subjects like Law, the practice of which became a source of my livelihood since early 1980s, I took up serious study of Homeopathy in its famed variants like Biochemic salts (which are now recognized by the WHO as nutraceuticals), Tautopathy vis-à-vis the principles of Ayurveda.

My quest to know the mechanism of diseases afflicting the human body drove me to closely study the body clock, popularly called circardian rhythm. A deep study unravelled many mysteries of the human body, which is the finest ever creation of God.  What all of us see day in and day out as a male or female (of course lots of prefixes of illusory superiority appended to their names, like, Pujya Paad, Holy Men, Justice, Doctor, CA, General, Colonel etc. etc.) and bullying  other “lesser mortals” with their spiritual, money and muscle powers etc. , are nothing except a conglomerate of billions of living cells made to work in unison with specific jobs allotted to them by the Divine Force,  what in Homeopathy is called the Vital Force.

Having been endowed with a most intricate machine in the form of human frame, the Divine Force has left it to the choice of each soul residing in that body to handle it with sagacity or with profanity. The material to be used for choosing either of the paths, of health or of disease, is what is known to all of us as food. While pursuing my “svadhyay” of the disease mechanism, brought out an altogether starting revelations about the role of food, which in our scheme of thinking, occupies only an insignificant place. Continuing with this series on “svadhyay” , my tryst with significance of food in our health shall be in focus  in next write up.