When Binoy couldn't recollect the incident, his mother came to the rescue. Yes, once when my sister was frying dosa, he had snatched something from the kitchen and ran. My sister had hit him with a flat ladle, said Binoy's mother.

It is now 8 months since Sadanandan had begun treating Binoy. Already, the patient can walk on his own and pluck out weeds in front of his house.

Sadanandan relies on the traditional Siddha Marma knowledge taught to him by his father Narayanan Nadar and uncle Manos Asan. He just accepts the cost of the medicines and the traveling expenses, but otherwise does the treatment for free, as per his pledge to his gurus.

He personally visits the patients and diagnoses the disease, prescribes the 'kashayams' to be made by the family themselves and only supplies some 'rasayanas' and single dose medicines. He accepts limited patients but ensures that they get his full attention.

More dramatic than Binoy's is the story of Leela, another patient of his. Leela had been bedridden for the past 28 years following a blow to the spine. As all doctors abandoned hope of making her well, she was destined to lie supine in a dirty room where ordinary men dared not enter. When Sadanandan entered the room, she was a swollen mass suffering from urinary infection and helpless even to end her vegetable-like existence.

Today, after 9 months of treatment, her weight has reduced to ¼, and she can move her legs and turn in the bed. According to Sadanandan, she should be able to walk on her own in 2 years' time.

Sadanandan is confident that he can diagnose the disease of anyone by observing the pulse. Let the patients choose the mode of treatment after that, he feels.