Kishore Singh: The motion has it

For a nation that famously makes a fetish of its bowel movements, analysing each day's output with the diligence of research scientists, it's a mystery why so much cupidity is involved in its management. Before the film Piku released yesterday, promos showing a feisty Deepika Padukone with a tray load of bananas and Sat Isabgol - psyllium husk - struck a deep chord in our family. For a brand-disloyal family that has stayed untrue to everything from shampoo and toothpaste brands to watches and cars, the unquestioned allegiance to Sat Isabgol in the household over five decades, whether we lived in Coonoor or Shillong, Kolkata or New Delhi, has been the more remarkable.

Ever since I can remember, my father has suffered from chronic constipation that has got worse over the years. Our morning habits were formed watching him consume two to three pots of tea, variously seven to nine cups of the brew that he sipped from a saucer in village fashion to hasten what had developed into a two-hour ritual. It was preceded by a jug of warm water that was drunk with honey, or lemon, or plain, depending on the latest advisor. Over time, this evolved into a ritual. He could only drink tea in a set of melamine cups that had been acquired some time in the eighties, and which accompanied him on his official travels. Advisories were sent out to his hosts to stock the right tea blends, and to make sure to have a cosy not just for the teapot but also for the milk pot. Those unable to meet him officially knew he was available - and vulnerable - during those two hours of the morning and took to "dropping by", so extra pots and cups were required to be at hand for his morning durbar.

We took my father's afternoon glass of warm water with plantago ovata and a late night glass of milk, also with Sat Isabgol, for granted, something that was his particular quirk. Ours was a household that woke early to accommodate my father's oblations. Morning flights or trains required precision and planning on an epic scale. Because we were used to it, it was unremarkable for us. But when we began to marry, the new incumbents found it idiosyncratic. "It is only constipation," they insisted, "it is treatable," arriving with newspaper clippings, homeopathic remedies and medicinal powders for his edification. His diet was briefly varied to include salads and raw vegetables (my wife), an overdose of chillies (my sister-in-law), and sundry suppositories suggested by newly acquired in-laws, friends and acquaintances. Rude cures were suggested, among them enemas. Walks were recommended - before tea, after breakfast, pre-dinner or apres. When nothing worked, they gave it up as a foible, almost as if my father was refusing to cooperate in the treatment.

In recent years, with little to do late in his retired life, my father has taken it upon himself to visit everyone from quacks to alternate healers in search of an antidote. My mother refuses to accompany him on these rendezvous, so my father - who is hard of hearing - has a bedside table that groans under the weight of prescriptions that no one knows to monitor or administer, leading to a hit-and-trial method of medication. My mother's habit of periodically throwing away medicines, or hiding them, exacerbates the situation. Through it all, his Sat Isabgol stays constant. Family legend has it that my father alone has brought enough of the Sidhpur-based company's stuff to keep it in profit.