If you have grown up on a diet of Bollywood films, you're by now familiar with the 'fact' that at times, all a critically ill patient in a hospital needs is a prayer, not medicines. "Isko dawa ki nahin, dua ki zaroorat hai" is a staple dialogue that usually surfaces when an actor is fighting for his life, surrounded by a gaggle of women and old people weeping and fervently praying.
No prizes for guessing, that is what gets the hero back to life. Now all this is good in a hospital in a film. Off the silver screen, it'd be preferred if things were, umm, a little more 'scientific'. The Gandhi Hospital in Hyderabad is out to prove that prayers may achieve what medicine can't. And that's why, they decided to hold a 'havan' in the hospital to reduce the number of deaths there.
Alarmed by the number of infant-mother deaths in the maternity ward, the head of the gynaecology department decided to hold 'Mruthyunjaya Homam' -- a ritual believed to stop untimely deaths, Newsminute reported.
The ritual was conducted by four priests and several doctors and medical students were seen participating in it, videos and images of the event, circulating in social media, revealed. With increasing talks of seeking cure in indigenous Indian medicines, and a panel being set up to study panchgavya, that day isn't far when cow urine would be a legitimate ingredient of remedies.
Prayer ceremonies, such as this one, have always had a part in hospitals, where death and life coexists. When former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa was ill, massive prayers, including yajnas and rituals, were held outside the hospital she was admitted to.