When the West discovers our natural treasures

With Isabgol making it to 'NYT', the government would do well to launch a One Nation, One Fibre scheme to honour something that binds India together as a country and also keeps it moving every day

- SANDIP ROY

Years ago, I embarked on a project to report on ageing in India. I met a leading demographer in Kerala, visited a high-end retirement community outside Mumbai and interviewed a well-known gerontologist in Bengaluru. But the insight that really stayed with me came from a friend’s mother in Delhi.

Kanta Advani sat me down and said, “My main problem of getting old is constipation.” She said that was a major topic of discussion when she met other elderly people and they all swapped recipes and home remedies. Then she chortled: “Remember that. You will also get it when you are old.”

Kanta Advani is no more. But I thought of her the other day when Isabgol, the constipation cure for generations of Indians, made its debut in the hallowed portals of The New York Times (NYT). It did not show up in some new-age slick wellness avatar. Priya Krishna’s article was accompanied by an image I recognised only too well—a rectangular box of B G Telephone brand Sat-Isabgol or psyllium husk.

A similar green and white box sits in our kitchen in Kolkata as well. My mother might forget to restock her blood pressure pills but she cannot stomach the thought of being Isabgol-deprived. During the first covid-19 lockdown, when stores were shuttered and transport ground to halt, we had a case of Isabgol panic. Since then, we have made sure that come what may, there is always a backup box of Telephone Sat-Isabgol in the house. I have never seen the Plantago ovata, or horse flower, but the husk of its seeds, “highly purified by sieving and winnowing”, has been part of my entire life. We would make fun of my mother’s psyllium husk obsession but now, thanks to NYT, she is having the last laugh.