Due recognition

The latest Westerncelebrity to seek theEast's heating touchis British billionaireand father-in-law ofcricket icon lmranKhan, Sir JamesGoldsmith. The healer is therenowned metal therapist based inDehra Dun, Uttar Pradesh,'VaidyaBalendu Prakash, who is treatingGoldsmith, 64, in Paris for cancer.

The cancer, that first appeared inGoldsmith's liver in 1993, went intoremission and surfaced in his pancreas in 1995. It has recently led tofurther complications in his gut tissues. It forced Goldsmith to undergopainful treatment while he was campaigning for the Referendum party during the recent British general election, pushed to the limits of conventional allopathic treatment, his family sought the intervention of Vaedya Prakash, who is well-known in Pakistan and India, where he has successfully treated many multiple sclerosis and cancer patients using burnt traces of heavy metals such asarsenic and mercury - a therapybased on the ancient Indian Rasayan Sastra (Down To Earth, Vol 5, No 13).

Still, the British played the doubting Thomas act. Sir James' brotherand one of the founder editors of TheEcologist, Edward Goldsmith, madeinquiries about the healer's credentials with Indian environmentalists,including Vandana Shiva, SunderialBahuguna and the editor of Down ToEarth (DTE).

Prakash, who was in Delhi on hisreturn from Paris in the first week ofJune, told DTE that Sir James hadcontributed US $40,000 to the corpusof the Vaidya's medical researchfoundation in Dehra Dun. Prakashhas reason to be proud - two years after being snubbed by Australian doctors, who asked people to stop his metal therapy, he has been accepted by their French counterparts as the last resort for a British noble. He considers it a recognition of his work in traditional Indian medicine.