Indians Eat Live Sardines to Cure Asthma
The southern city's Goud family has been dispensing the medicine at this time of year for nearly 50 years.
They say they received the formula from a Hindu saint.
Sceptical scientists say the formula should be revealed for scrutiny but the family says it fears others will then exploit it.
Special diet
The time of the treatment is fixed each year by astrologers and normally coincides with the arrival of monsoon rains.
This year it began on Sunday night outside the Goud family home even though the monsoons have been delayed.
Patients must swallow the live fish - a murrel or sardine - along with a ball of mystery yellowish paste, then go on a strict 45-day diet of 25 different foods, including lamb, rice, sugar, dried mango, spinach and clarified butter.
"If all these instructions are carefully followed we can guarantee a 100% cure for any patient no matter how bad their asthma," says family patriarch Harinath Goud.
Up to half a million asthma sufferers are expected to take a dose - administered free of charge - in the next few days.
Special trains and buses are laid on from across India to bring believers to Hyderabad. Some patients travel from overseas.
Baldev Singh has travelled from the north-western state of Rajasthan for a fifth straight year.
"I am told that one should take this medicine for at least seven years to root out the problem of asthma completely," he said.
Preeta Mandlekar, 27 and from Bombay (also known as Mumbai), said: "The first time I had to do it I was terrified by the idea of having to swallow a live fish. But now it's not a problem; it just slips down the throat and disappears in a flash."
The Gouds say the wriggling fish helps clear the accumulated phlegm in the throat.
read more: BBC
