Indians flock to Hyderabad to ingest live fish with 'miracle cure' for asthma

A mother encourages her daughter to open her mouth wide to swallow a live fish holding the "medicine" she believes will help cure her child's asthma as crowds roar, gobbling up their fish and hoping for the best.

Every summer, on a day considered auspicious by astrological calculations, people suffering from asthma and other respiratory ailments flock to the southern Indian city of Hyderabad to swallow a small live fish with their mouths filled with a secret herbal treatment that only a family can create.

Legend has it that in 1845 a wandering saint presented a secret formula of miraculous herbs to Veeranna Goud, a man living in the old city of Hyderabad, and instructed him to give it freely to asthma patients.

Since then, Goud's descendants, known as the Bathini family, have preserved the tradition and kept the herbal formula a secret, shared only among male descendants.

"My great-grandfather, Veeranna Goud, passed this secret formula on to his sons and they passed it on to their sons and now we are the fifth generation carrying on the tradition," said Kakarna Alkananda, who helps oversee the distribution. , although she is unaware of the formula.

The fish is said to travel down the throat and relieve any phlegm or congestion.

“My mom has been taking this treatment for seven years now and it has brought her a lot of relief. She is breathing more easily and her attacks have become more frequent," said Aash Mohammed, who traveled more than 20 hours by train from the Indian capital New Delhi with his family.

The Bathini family must call the treatment 'prasadam', which roughly translates as 'offering', after a local organization working to dispel superstitious beliefs won a court case barring them from describing the treatment as 'medical'.

However, the practice enjoys support despite opposition from scientific groups and others who say there is no evidence behind it and even call it unsanitary.

People buy their fish from the stands of the government fisheries department in the country.

Although the treatment is free, each fish costs 40 rupees or about 50 cents.

After collecting the live fish in a plastic bag filled with water, each person gives it to an attendant who works with the Bathini family, who squeezes a yellow herbal paste into the fish's mouth and helps them swallow it.

Thousands of people have used prasadam this year, according to organizers.

The local government sets up the makeshift structure for the event while overseeing safety and hygiene measures.