IAS officer Rajeev Sharma blew the ‘holy’ conch in a room full of listeners at the 103rd Indian Science Congress for about two minutes. He didn’t do so for religious reasons, but to show how psychosomatic disorders can be cured by blowing the conch (‘shankh-naand’) correctly. He reasoned with an Albert Einstein quote saying, “most problems in universe have simple solutions.”
Lungs expand, neck muscles stretch beneficially, and the brain gets nourished with all that blood flow. Sharma claimed.
Sharma also used Prime Minister Modi’s quote to say how we have to use tradition to find sustainable solutions. He thus emphasised that the solution to India’s complex health problems lie in blowing the shankh properly.
He explained that this routine provides “excellent exercise for rectal muscles, prostrate, urinary tract, lower abdomen, diaphragm, chest and neck muscles.”
There is so much blood circulation that it will turn “white hair to black”, he claimed, as the audience consisting renowned psychologists, professors and students gasped, reported The Times of India.
Understanding that this creates a holistic healthy approach to an individual, Sharma explained that the trumpeting of this device, used in many Indian households, apparently soothes and prepares the mind for meditation, if done correctly.
Though the nature of the topic was a little controversial for this day and age, IAS Rajeev Sharma was still allowed to present his paper with persmission from NK Saksena, president of Anthropological and Behavioural Sciences section.
So when Indian-born Nobel laureate Venkatraman Ramakrishnan has called the ongoing Indian Science Congress a “circus” where “very little science was discussed”, was he right?
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