HAKIM Hafiz Salim, at 85, is the grand old man of Unani medicine in Aurangabad. He runs a small hospital from which he cures the locals of all kinds of ailments. Every morning, in a starched white kurta and pajama, his silver hair and beard neatly combed, he sets out to do his shopping. And what does Hakim Hafiz shop for? �Sarbats, arak, jadi-booti and other kinds of Unani medicines that are procured from Bombay, Delhi, Hyderabad, Amritsar, Jalgaon and some local villages and sold in one of the medicine shops in Aurangabad,� said the old man.

That particular morning, he was at the Ahmed Ali M. Noor Ali Dawasaz at City Chowk in Aurangabad, leafing through an Urdu medicine book a little older than himself for the cure to some illness that had defeated even his years of experience and wisdom. The proprietor of the dawasaz, Nooruddin Mushifiqhusain, said his establishment was at least 150 years old. And Hakim Hafiz was a regular customer. Several other hakims in the city came there too for Unani, as a form of medicine, was most popular in Aurangabad Nooruddin, though not a hakim, claimed to have indepth knowledge of Unani medicines too.

He got all the medicines from various cities, then dried and processed them, and made the Unani medicines in his small workshop above his Dawasaz. �I learnt about Unani while working under my father,� he said. �Often patients come to me for treatment. I understand the symptoms and prescribe the necessary medicines. Illnesses related to the nose, eyes, throat, and women�s medical problems, I can deal with easily. If there�s something I don�t understand, I refer the customer to a Unani doctor. There are several in Aurangabad. A lot of people believe in the curative powers of Unani.�

Indeed, they do. And it is true, there are several Unani doctors, or hakims, in Aurangabad. One of the most successful is Shabbar Dawasaz who runs a busy and thriving practise at Pandariba Road in Aurangabad and whose little clinic is choc-a-bloc with mostly women until late in the evening. Shabbar is fortunate to have a Unani medicine shop right next door. K. K. Dawasaz keeps the same hours as he does and all his patients are referred here for medicines that Shabbar himself does not keep. His method of diagnosis is peculiar. He takes a patient�s pulse and from that, is able to come to a fairly accurate understanding of all the ailments a person has.

There is not much of a difference between Unani medicine and Ayurveda. According to Nooruddin, both are the same, only while Unani is practised by Muslim hakims Ayurveda is by Hindu vedics. �The medicines are the same, but the formulae and making processes for Unani and Ayurveda are different,� he explained. �And whereas the hakims learnt Unani in Urdu or Persian, the vedics studied Ayurveda in Sanskrit.�