A doctor from Gujarat is coming down to treat maladies in Bengal. Arogya Bharati, the medical service wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, is organising a two-day workshop and counselling session to give Hindu couples in West Bengal the secret to bearing children that can change India's future.
You can't miss the subtlety or absurdity of the Bengal-Gujarat connection here. If there is something that goes beyond the angry exchange of words between Modi and Mamata or the frequent mention of Gujarat's success and Bengal's failure in industry, it is this. Perhaps Bengal is now the favourable breeding ground for ideas that the RSS wants to propagate. The response to this workshop has been rather good so far.
Sixty couples have already registered for the two day workshop on May 6 and 7, titled "Garbha Sanskar and Dampati Samikshan" (childbearing reforms and counselling couples) which involves an introductory lecture and individual sessions with each of these couples by Dr Karishma Mohandas Narvani, an ayurvedic antenatal care expert. The idea is to treat infertility, the ayurveda way and giving tips to couples to have "the best" children by practising some specific methods.
According to Anjani Banerjee, who heads the women's activities of Arogya Bharati from Kolkata, age-old Ayurvedic methods will be taught to the couples who have registered for the counselling sessions, for them to conceive "good" children. "Do we see great souls like Subhas Chandra Bose being born today? There are children, but there is an acute absence of those that can be called purna-atma," Banerjee said.
Dr Karishma Mohandas Narvani, ayurvedic antenatal care consultant, ayurvedic garbhsanskar expert and infertility expert, based in Gujarat's Jamnagar, will come down to Kolkata for the sessions. Narvani is director of Garbhvigyan Anusandhan Kendra in Jamnagar, and conducts these workshops and sessions in different parts of Gujarat. This is her first visit to Kolkata, she said.
According to the organisation's website, treatment is offered for "getting best progeny", "infertility", "child development", and the procedures are "preconceptual" and "garbhadhan".
Narvani, who is Bachelor of Ayurvedic Medicine & Surgery (BAMS) from Gujarat Ayurved University, Jamnagar, says there are two steps involved for couples well before conceiving – the first a 15-day procedure, and the second, a 72-day procedure. This, she says, involves body cleansing – called narishuddhi – which apparently helps in purifying the inner selves that dwell inside the human body and helps in "enhancing" and "upgrading" it to a higher level.
Once a woman is pregnant, the child's abilities in the womb can also be influenced by what the mother reads, hears, sees and practises, apart from her diet, Narvani said. "All this is done for the best progeny in the coming generation. One can plan the mental, physical and spiritual qualities, and upgrade it through ayurvedic methods," she said.
Though the Garbhvigyan Anusandhan Kendra website says that the child's sex can be influenced too, Narvani denies this is possible to intervene and influence through her methods.
Narvani is also the national convenor of Garbhsanskar Project which has been launched by the Arogya Bharati in 2004. Already 500 children were born in this method in Jamnagar, Surat and Gandhidham of Gujarat under the project, she said.
The doctor said that the procedure was not just meant for the Hindus. "Every religion would want the best progeny," she said, adding that she has even treated a Muslim couple.
Anjani Banerjee, from Kolkata's Arogya Bharati, however said, "It is only the Hindus that want to have and aspire for such children." She added that only Hindu couples had so far got in touch with their organisation for the session and workshop in Kolkata.
The sixty couples who have registered with Arogya Bharati are not only from Kolkata and neighbouring Howrah district, but also from Nadia, Murshidabad, Darjeeling, South 24 Parganas, North 24 Parganas districts among others.
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