'Nature has all the answers'

Go green

At the age of eight-and-a-half year when Aarti Bhalla suffered third degree burns while lighting a firecracker on a Diwali night, the doctors attending her lost hope of her survival as she was in coma for several months. But after a long struggle with her life, Bhalla survived making it a rare case of its kind in the history of the hospital. “I came out of the hospital after more than a year in 1968 but I was completely disfigured and handicapped. I could not even eat as my mouth was completely contracted and wouldn’t open on its own. I was on a liquid diet for almost a year and my mother used to feed me through a tube. Though I survived, but my journey with the hospitals continued for many more years. I spent 25 years on an average, which was almost eight to nine months in a year, in and out of the hospitals,”
 recollects Bhalla.

That is when she decided to bank on natural products and seek alternative medicine. “As I went through 42 surgeries, I saw a lot of sufferings in hospitals and realised the side effects of medicines. With so much of medicines pumped up in me, my health really took a beating. It was then my faith in natural medicine was affirmed,” says the 55-year-old.

“I have used herbs in my kitchen, ever since I was 11. I have always believed that nature has healing powers. I started using the same natural herbs for myself and my family. Over a period of time, it began to give fantastic results,” adds Delhi-based Bhalla.

Later, she went on to become qualified as a naturopath and also studied acupuncture, reflexology and Ayurvedic nutrition. Bhalla recently launched her label ‘The Kitchen Factory’.
“I started enjoying it. As I was making products for my family, they were in turn gifting  on festivals and special occasions to their friends. That is how my Facebook page and label came into being, a few months ago,” she tells Metrolife.

Dealing in products like aloe vera, natural and essential oils and wheatgrass,
Bhalla prepares home-made “pure” products like creams, massage oils and face packs and customises according to client requirements. She points out, “As of today,
there is so much of adulteration in our food because of the air, water and soil quality due to which people are falling sick. In fact, it’s a paradox considering that both hospitals and diseases are mushrooming. That is why people are understanding that nature has all
the answers.”