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chapter, he was her god. But the feeling was not reciprocated. He took her on some of his
travels, and introduced her to several strangers and friends. But her prime concern always
was her husband’s personal well being. He himself did not seem to show the
consideration for her asthma and blood pressure. As years went by, he understood her
better and tried to cater to her needs. When in 1975 she fell down and broke her hip, and
was bed ridden he was heart broken too. Soon she was to lose her memory and slowly get
into the grips of Alzheimer’s disease. All these left him absolutely helpless.

Abraham continued to be interested in social reforms. When Vinoba Bhave, a follower of
Gandhiji, who went on walking tours all over the country to exhort people to donate land
to the landless, came to Kaipuzha, Abraham met him and donated a piece of his
property. The brief meeting with Bhave was to be remembered for a long time. Peter
Reddy, a professor in some of the Jesuit Colleges in Madras, who abandoned his
professorial chair to become a mendicant preacher attracted Abraham’s attention. He
invited Reddy to his house, and had long conversation with him. For years after,
Abraham regretted that he did not heed the invitation of Peter Reddy to join him in his
mission of imitating Christ and Francis of Assisi.

Nature Cure was something that Abraham dabbled in initially as a hobby. His readings
about Gandhi, his visit to Vardha, his association with Pothan Powathel, his visits to
Mylapra Kaku, and his own natural inclination to believe in the healing powers of nature
gradually brought him to embrace naturopathy with great enthusiasm. Naturopathy means
to follow the path of nature. When we look at nature, we find that it provides all that is
needed for mankind. Natural living things contain vitamins, minerals, enzymes, fats,
carbohydrates, proteins and water. These are some of the elements essential for life.
Naturopathy is based on following the natural inclination of Divine intelligence within
the body, to maintain itself through totally natural means and substances.

Abraham researched naturopathy a great deal. He experimented with himself before he
would recommend anything to others. The standard practices associated with naturopathy
(he called it, mistakenly, Coony-system after a priest-physician of the 19th century who
experimented with nature cure in Bad Kissingen, Germany.) Consisted of mud bath,
sitting in water- hip bath, sun bathing, regular purgation, occasional fasting etc.etc.. To
these Abraham added yoga, meditation, and such Indian concepts. He enjoyed the
attention that would be received by unusual actions. He would wear saffron clothes as
sanyasis in India would. He would appear with mud all over when visitors would arrive.
He would extol the virtues of fasting and lying in the sun. He called his enterprise
“Nature Cure Athurasramam”, wrote articles in newspapers, invited friends and strangers
to his house, and lost no chance to preach simple living. He had a few clients, whom he
diligently looked after, treated, and in some cases made better. Nature Cure became his
avocation and obsession.

In 1970 his children and grand children planned to celebrate his sixtieth wedding
anniversary on a grand scale. They invited all the members of the two families - Pathyil
and Nellupadathu, prepared a sumptuous dinner and held a meeting in the house to
felicitate the jubilarians. All, except those abroad, attended. Each unit of the children’s

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