Eat

The festival that might make you wretchHyderabad, India

If you’re suffering from asthma, consider joining the thousands of pilgrims who gather every year at Hyderabad in India to take part in a mass fish-guzzling ceremony. The Bathini Mrugasira Fish are stuffed with a special secret medicinal paste, apparently given to a local family by a holy man more than 150 years ago. The family continues to administer the herbal cure to patients for free, claiming their asthma will be cured after just three years’ of treatment.

The only catch? You’ve got to swallow the live fish whole so it can loosen the phlegm as it wriggles down your throat.


get there

Head to the Exhibition grounds of Nampally, Hyderabad. Take a bus and walk from the Nampally Railway Station, buses are frequent. It’s available in early June annually, open from 8am for 24 hours.

Five rupees or US$0.07 cents per fish.

Swallowing live fish leaves most gagging.

Bathini Fish
bathinifish.com

There’s no actual proof that this treatment assists asthma sufferers.

Tags: festival, india, wellness

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