A Medicine Man in Mumbai

Almost all hawkers I see in Mumbai have a way with people when they call their attention to their wares. The voice rises several notches, ringing out loud, navigating through gaps in the crowds that mill about the place scouring wares on display for things they're looking to buy, before running up sweating bodies and into ears numbed from years in the metropolis. It takes the uninitiated a while to adjust to the decibel level and carry on normally. And Mumbai is a tough place to begin learning to adjust.

Some hawkers who hawk in groups on a footpath or by the side of a road may not be as vociferous as say a hawker who decides to make an empty stretch his business area. Unlike those hawkers who’re a part of groups, hawking his/her goods, the lone hawker can only rely on his vocal chords to draw attention, there’s no one to do it for him. And it is these lone operators who normally interest me. And Mumbai has more than its share of them.

I’m not sure if it is a coincidence but I’ve noticed that hawkers who peddle medicines, herbs, and other similar items, often labeling them as Ayurvedic cures, usually choose to operate alone though my guess is as good as yours as to whether their ‘cures,’ sold under the Ayurveda label, possibly to increase their USP and carry credibility with prospective customers, posses any merits or healing properties. Nevertheless they rarely fail to draw curious onlookers, and some enterprising Mumbai souls volunteer to try those cures like the one in the picture who complained of pain in the knee and held out his leg to the ‘medicine man’ and let him apply the cream from a small glass bottle with black plastic cap which he claimed cures pains suffered from lathis (a heavy stick normally used by policemen to disperse rioters or rowdy elements), falls, and the like. I was intrigued when the ‘medicine man’, after he had spread his wares on sheets of paper he had pulled out of his bag and spread them on the Cawasji Patel street in Fort, called out to people thus: “If you’ve been hit by lathis, and suffered pain by them . . . ” I wondered if his invocation was not due to the fact that he had suffered the business end of the lathi, probably wielded by the police, on more occasions than he would care to remember, thinking others must have been similarly privileged to experience the lathi. Then he listed other injuries his medicine could cure. Within a short time a goodly crowd gathered around him, materializing out of nowhere and everywhere. It helped that the white coloured cream he applied on himself, leaving no exposed part alone, ‘smoldered’, emitting thick plumes of smoke. It sure made for a startling effect. I touched a bottle to check if it was hot. It wasn’t. As his voice raised another pitch, almost as if to rise above the crowd that now gathered around him and carry beyond it to others in the vicinity, the more vigorously he applied the cream on his hands, and legs, letting white plumes spiral up in agitation impressively.

After grimacing a bit, the volunteer turned to face the crowd, smiled, and said, “It (the knee) pains even more now,” drawing giggles from all around. However, the ‘medicine man’ remained unperturbed, instead focussing on giving the proffered knee a vigorous rub-over. “Dus rupaye ko ek, dus rupaye ko ek,” (for ten rupees, one bottle) he announced, before offering three for twenty rupees. I bought one bottle. He handed me a yellow page that listed the source of the product (from Uttar Pradesh) and a list of injuries it purportedly treated. I opened the bottle cautiously, drawing back in alarm as a white plume of ‘smoke’ rushed out, emitting a foul smell I couldn’t quite place for, I had never smelt anything like it before, let alone opened a medicine bottle that emitted a cloud I thought would be in place in a magic show, not on a sultry afternoon in Mumbai.