Reaching-out Therapy

By Anuradha Mascarenhas

A sense of desperation was beginning to grip twenty four-year-old Khlangor Nongkhlaw when, two years after graduating in economics from the North Eastern Hill University in Shillong, he failed to land a job. He was ninth of the ten children his parents had and Khlangor sorely needed a job to support his family.

So when he saw an ad for a six-month course in ayurvedic therapy to be held in Bangalore through the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU), he promptly applied. Six months later, on July 29, Khlangor and 22 other youths from the Northeast received their course certificates at the Institute of Ayurvedic and Integrated Medicine (IAIM) in Bangalore. Even before that, Khlangor had landed himself a job at a Bangalore hospital.

To help students from the Northeast with employment opportunities, IGNOU has also set up a new institute of vocational training in Shillong, says Dr Debjani Roy, Director of the Indigenous Knowledge and Technology section of the institute.

“Initially, this job-oriented ayurvedic course was drafted keeping in mind the unemployment problem in those states and was meant for students from the Northeast. But now, we have decided to open it up for everyone. Students weren’t charged anything for the course. The first batch of students from Meghalaya and Assam got their certificates on July 29 and most of them have got jobs in ayurvedic hospitals and wellness centres in Bangalore.” says Roy.

The North Eastern Council has decided to sponsor the next batch of 17 students from the states of Arunachal Pradesh and Mizoram. Also, the government’s Department of AYUSH has urged that panchkarma therapy should be introduced at all district hospitals in the country.

Twenty two-year-old Palmo Lama, a political science graduate from Shillong, says she took up the course because she wanted to learn something new. “I wish the course was for more than six months,” says Palmo, who wants to work in Bangalore for a while before returning to Shillong.

Renewal Ksoo, a class XII student from Jaintia Hills district of Meghalaya, says she took up the course because she wanted a “job in the city” “They taught us yoga, nursing and panchkarma treatment for people suffering from low back pain or rheumatic complaints,” she says.

Dr Bhushan Patwardhan, director of IAIM who was formerly director of School of Health Science at the University of Pune, says an experienced team of doctors, yoga teachers and therapists trained the students.

Course coordinator Dr Sheetal Arangady says students for the course were selected by a board in Shillong. The minimum qualification needed was class X and students had to be in the age group of 18-25 years.