LOTS OF GIFTS AT THE 10TH AYURVEDA DAY CELEBRATIONS!

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LOTS OF GIFTS AT THE 10TH AYURVEDA DAY CELEBRATIONS!

Eating is Fun / Eating is Yuck! - A variety food column September 26, 2025 , by Tara Narayan

THE challenge is on to bring the preventive and curative healthcare of Ayurveda to every home! And for me it is always worth going out to the All India Institute of Ayurveda (AIIA GOA) at Dhargal in Pernem taluka (near Manohar International Airport). This time I found myself going there because the Ministry of AYUSH was celebrating 10th Ayurveda Day or Ayurveda Diwas on September 23, 2025.
The 50 acre state-of-the-art Ayurveda Hospital & College came alive with a festive air, with a welcome of marigolds garlands and rangoli creativity everywhere where the Lord of Ayurveda – Lord Dhanvantri – stood; a host of activities showcased India’s commitment to switching over to an Ayurveda lifestyle – for Ayuveda is not just a science of healthcare but comes with other linkages so that humans may live a balanced lifestyle to reap health, happiness and harmony. In our very troubled times currently Ayurveda offers hope with its gifts of inspiration to live in peace!
IT was a cloudy dhoop-chau day with intermittent spells of sunshine and small rain and the AIIA Goa campus buzzed with students, faculty of Ayurveda from Goa and Delhi, visitors from the neighboring states, international and local government dignitaries, not to mention some distinguished Ayurveda award-winners and media people seeking interviews with them, as also catch up with the nitty gritty of the various schools of alternate healthcare. Some would say India’s ancient traditional healthcare and lifestyle system of Ayurveda is making rapid strides given Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s generous and over-generous vision of making Ayurveda and Yoga an internationally recognized life science.
Apart from the main mega event which saw several programs (many digitally released books to boost the research, translation and boosting of ancient sciences) there were yoga and entertainment programs, eloquent talks by various dignitaries including Union Minister of State for Ayush & Health Pratap Rao Jadav, Goa Governor Ashok Gajapathi, AIIA Goa Director Prof (Vd) Pradeep Kumar Prajapati, former Union Ayush Minister Shripad Naik (now Union Minister of State for Power and New and Renewable Energy) who incidentally speaks the most eloquent Hindi, Chief Minister of Goa Dr Pramod Sawant of course and several others. They pointed out in so many words that Goa can now be a global hub for Ayurveda-centered wellbeing. Over the last ten years interest in Ayurveda’s preventive and healing therapies has grown exponentially and today something like more than 150 countries look to Ayurveda as an important alternative healthcare system from India.
A MOST interesting highlight of the celebration was the exhibition titled Ran-Bhaji Utsav. Here various stalls highlighted the wonderful world of forest vegetables, herbs, healing potions which serve as invaluable food – and featuring in Ayurveda’s “sattvic” cornucopia of recipes. Showcasing local village preparations with wild greens were the women of the Biodiversity Board and everyone visiting the exhibition got to taste the goodness of fiber and nutrient-rich “bhaji” with “bhakri” of the maroon red little millet “nachne,” also called “ragi” (finger millet in English). There were stalls giving visitors an idea of Ayurveda pharma medicines with Dabur presumably being the largest company engaged in doing Ayuveda medicines, tonics and other intriguing products (check out Awalapachak drink which is served to in-house patients at the AIIA hospital in Dhargal. The Margao Khadi shop stall too offered a range of khadi cotton attire, household linen, etc… there were intriguing sherbats, “poushtik” (healthy) cumin seed cookies, fine dry powders of “aonla,” (Indian gooseberries), drumstick tree leaves (“maska bhaji”), “ashwaganda,” there is so much to learn and understand about how Ayurveda works as a preventive and curative healthcare system in so many contexts.
The theme of this year’s 10th Ayurveda Diwas gala celebration was “Ayurveda for People & Planet.” A pioneering highlight of the day was the inauguration of the country’s first ever integrative oncology clinic at the Dhargal Ayush hospital. According to AIIA’s Dean (Dr) Sujata Kadam, this oncology clinic has already started functioning with several patients now being treated along evidence based integrative lines, it’s the first of its kind effort to being speedier recovery post trauma of cancer treatments like surgery and radiation.
The Allopathy-Ayurveda joint venture is in collaboration with doctors of the Tata Memorial Centre and the outcome will be very interesting in time to come. We know that the sound of the Big C always rings the bells of doomsday for many, patients who generally think they will not survive cancer and mainstream cancer treatments. Can Ayurveda make a difference for the better and usher in a new lease of life for cancer patients?
It was altogether a most educative celebration of the 10th Ayurveda Diwas and not least of all I must say it was a pleasure dropping in to take a look at AIIA’s Diet Clinic, lured by the veggie and herbal garden patches fronting it. A very neat retreat where food is prepared for patients being treated as per their Ayurveda doctor’s recommendation. Goa’s Dhargal All India Institute of Ayurveda Hospital & College is really state-of-the-art and currently has wards with 250 beds, there are 22 OPDs for consulting the panel of Ayurveda doctors here and for a fee of Rs10 one gets a coupon to see the right consultant for whatever one’s health issue is. Your consultant will decide whether you need to do a course of treatment on admission (as in the case of Panchakarma, Ayurveda’s most famed de-tox package) or you may be just a visiting patient.
There is a smart canteen in the main block on the first floor where patients’ relatives may catch reasonably priced health-conscious beverages and Indian snacks including a thali meal featuring millet bhakri, I haven’t tasted it yet but on while there at the 10th Ayurveda Diwas celebration, although I missed the grand feast prepared for visitors and media people (the catering by Amonkar’s), a media friend insisted I go taste the “makhane kheer” if there was any left…I did and truly this lotus seeds sweet is memorable, rich with the good things of life and not oversweet! “Makhane” or lotus seeds are now on the list of super foods and so their price is sky high. A real option for the usual carbs of diabetes fame – as in don’t eat rice but go for savoury makhane kichadi or makhane kheer (sweeten with honey or palm jaggery)!

Pratap Rao Jadav: Seeking
Rs 10,000 crore for Ayurveda…

MAIN event over Union Minister for Ayush Pratap Rao Jadhav was being interviewed by media people. I managed to ask him about the budget for Ayush, he replied that he was seeking Rs 10,000 crore or 10% of the Union health budget to make Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s dream of putting Ayurveda in every home in India come true!
The minister also noted that obesity was turning up as a huge problem today and “khaan-paan” which is one of the key foundations of Ayurveda treatments can do with upgrading the local infrastructure. Make right food available to people so that they reap better health parameters and not get fat eating the junk foods of our times. Obesity is becoming a huge problem in India now and Ayurveda can treat it very effectively by initiating public-friendly dietary schemes.
I couldn’t help thinking that perhaps something on the lines of the late Tamil Nadu Jayalalitha’s scheme of Amma canteens, which offered extremely low-cost food to the common people of Tamil Nadu, would be an ideal way to go! Hey, how about Modi canteens to offer free or very subsidized “poushik” snacks and meals across the country? Think how tuberculosis and a whole host of degenerative diseases would be become a thing of the past in one generation – of course, only if someone can swing this for Bharatdesh! Why not?