Katrisarai in Bihar’s Nalanda district were running highly
successful businesses mailing products plugged as aphrodisiacs and cures for a
variety of mainly sexual and skin ailments to seekers of cures who prefer
anonymity. Katrisarai sub-post office. is actually a sub-post office and yet,
it’s the top revenue generating post office in the State and is also among the
top 10 [revenue generating post offices] in the country,” postmaster Nagendra
Prasad told The Hindu.
The nondescript village with a population of nearly 8,000
has been a hub for vaidyas — some allegedly fake, others said to be
genuine — who offer shartiyaelaaz (guaranteed treatment) with locally
mixed powders. “It has been like cottage industry here since the British
period. I am the fourth generation of my family doing this business,”
59-year-old Kishore Kumar told The Hindu. Mr. Kumar says there are 40-50
“genuine” vaidyas in the town. But the post office has a list of 179 vaidyas who
regularly courier their formulations in insured parcels. Ami Chand, an
Ayurvedic practitioner, is said to have first succeeded in such an enterprise
from here and, since then, his legacy has been taken forward by his family
members and other villagers. Today, almost every household here has a vaidya.
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