URINE AS MEDICINE

Waters Of India

Prasenjit Chowdhury


It is well documented that in 1978, Morarji Desai, then prime minister, spoke at length on CBS 60 Minutes explaining how urine therapy was the perfect medical solution for the millions of Indians unable to afford medical treatment. He claimed drinking his own urine cured his piles. Earlier this year, the RSSs cow protection department invented a new urine-based soft drink it hoped would promote its health-giving properties to a wider market. It was about to be marketed late this year. But with the poll prospects of the NDA drowning in the Ganges, the idea of such a funky drink has gone whiffy in the summer heat. Wikipedia tells us that in Roman times, there was a tradition among the Gauls to use urine to whiten teeth and that in China, the urine of young boys was regarded as a curative. The French customarily soaked stockings in urine and wrapped them around their necks in order to cure strep throat. A religious Sanskrit text in India called the Dhaamara Tantra under the heading of Shivaambu kalpa vidhi is known to contain 107 stanzas on the virtues of urine as a medicament.
We all came upon this earth nourished by the amniotic fluid that bathes the human foetus, of which urine is the main component, in our mothers womb. But, besides inducing a scatological distaste, the very idea of using ones urine as drinkable water must make everybody puke. The idea cant be scoffed at though, as late last year a urine processor was delivered by NASA to allow astronauts to live on the international space station via the space shuttle Endeavour. This equipment converts urine and sweat into drinkable water. Samples of the processed urine, sweat and condensation were to be brought back to earth and to be tested, so that the purified water could be made of use later. Water is such a precious commodity that one cant help thinking about how, back home, we dont care a hoot about making water in public. For India, with the help of the new-fangled urine processor , water conservation has immense possibility. How many gallons of purified water could we recycle had this fabulous contraption been imported or indigenised in India, which, detractors say, happens to be the largest public lavatory in South Asia And for those who earn their living by the sweat of their brow, not a drop of their labour, literally, could have been lost.