Less than three decades later, his is one of the few families left in the business.
Manjib's is the fifth generation who has been giving continuity to the family business. For decades, they have been dealing with the collection, making and selling of these medicines. Hundreds of years before that, his ancestors were the Gurujus, priests who performed rituals, and who also helped people when they got sick by making herbal medicines. "My great grandfathers were well known and people used to come to our house to get the medicines. My great grandfather was revolutionary in opening a store back then in Itumbaha near Nardevi, where people could come for medicines," Shakya says.
It was natural that he continued the tradition. By the time he was 15, he was ready to look after the shop. It was the time when medicine was going through a big change and he thought of making his knowledge more reliable, by attending classes at the Nardevi Ayurvedic College in Kathmandu. But due to various reasons, the college was closed and he thought of carrying on the path despite that, relying solely on the understanding of medicine and disease learnt from his elders.
Clearly this business is not for all. Shakya says that the entire process takes up a lot of effort, and not only from him, but the entire family and it can be tiring at times. "Dealing with around 500 different kinds of herbs, their cleaning, cutting, drying, preparing, storing and selling can be a challenge. The process is difficult, but it also yields fruitful results," he says.
Over the years, he has seen a sharp decline in the number of people who work in this field. As the allopathic medicines have an overwhelming control over the market, practitioners of traditional Ayurvedic medicine have not been able to challenge the competition and match their strides.
"Ayurvedic medicine was the ultimate choice of the people, even 50 years ago. People who know about the existence of such medicines do come to us. There are loyal customers. But we haven't been able to make our services accessible. Not surprisingly, people will seek allopathic medicines as they are easily available," he says.
Even though word of mouth has attracted a lot of customers, unfortunately, they don't have any plans to market the products in a large scale. "We don't believe in marketing and we won't be looking to taking such steps anytime soon. Our objective is to cure the patients, not promote mass consumption," he says. While the step might be considered commendable and unique compared to profit seeking businessmen, he does admit that there have been events which have affected their work.
When his grandfather put up the first shop in Itumbaha, others saw the opportunity and followed suit. "We had been practicing for years, but it wasn't the same with the others," he says. They started selling 'medicines' like Shakya's family had been doing, and very soon it came under the government's radar. "The government thought that we were like others who were selling random herbs in the name of medicine. So they blacklisted us and the situation was very tense then," he says.
"Instead of supporting us, the government and the medicine council antagonized us," he said. Since then, they have never been in good terms with the government. That was when they formed a council of their own – Paramparagat Ayurveda Chikitsa Byawasaya Sangh – which has been fighting with the government on behalf of such practitioners.
While the tussle between the government and the council has been never ending, the same can't be said about improvements within the practice. "Though we have given this practice continuity, we haven't changed a thing in it. We still follow what has been passed down to us by our fathers and grandfathers," he says. Ayurvedic medicine has also undergone many changes in the past few decades, where many colleges have been established, producing doctors every year, but Shakya has taken no notice of it.
While Shakya has good intentions of seeing to it that his patients are cured and healthy, he doesn't have any plans to modernize his practice and medicine. This tendency could also explain why most of the people have left the old practice and gone abroad or taken up more lucrative jobs.
"You can study in colleges, get a few years worth of experience and then join the practice. But what I think is that the knowledge people from family like ours have accumulated over the years amounts to something beyond what a few years of experience can give. It isn't formal education, but it isn't any less either," he says.
But what if traditional knowledge had been coupled with formal education? Shakya admits that Ayurvedic medicine can't provide fast and emergency services like that of allopathic medicine. "There are no provisions in emergency cases and we know that all too well," he says. And it is here that traditional medicine falls short.
And that is perhaps why Shakya does not completely shun medical doctors. He does visit them for consultations when his kids are sick, but he never actually takes his kids along. "I give them the medicine, but I do talk to the doctors for my own satisfaction. I've nothing against the allopathic ways and I'm not saying that our way is the best way. We should use the resources that are available," he says.
Probably he could start the much needed change here. Though he doesn't have any formal education, his knowledge of herbs and plants for medicinal use is still great, which leaves him with a rather great responsibility of passing it down to others. He admits he should start looking for an apprentice for he doesn't know if his children will carry on the legacy and if they don't, he doesn't want to force them to follow his footsteps. He could do well by adopting modern measures to preserve the traditional art of healing but it remains to be seen where this legacy goes from here on.
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