Regal, Elegant, Greatest Sports Champion Ever, these are not exaggerations, but exact description for Tennis legend Steffi Graf. Now the German fomer world No 1. has been appointed as the Ayurveda brand ambassador of Kerala.

"A decision in this regard was taken by the cabinet on Wednesday. The proposal had come from the state Tourism Department and a formal agreement on this would be reached with Steffi Graf soon," said Chief Minister Oommen Chandy after the cabinet meeting.

The Kerala tourism department had moved the controversial proposal to sign an agreement with Graf for making her the brand ambassador as part of the tourism department's new 'Visit Kerala Scheme', Chandy said.

The tourism department had already held discussions and reached an informal agreement with the Steffi Graf, who had bagged 22 Grand slam single titles. Now a formal signing of the agreement will take place as per the convenience of Steffi Graf.

The idea behind appointing the tennis legend is to promote the ancient system of traditional health care by wooing the tourists who are coming from abroad. After consulting with Graf, the tourism department will be charting out a series of programmes to launch the campaign outside India.

But Ayurveda has its dark side as well.

But now many immature doctors, who hailed themselves as Ayurvedic Specialists prescribe a bagful of unwanted medicines for minor ailments. Many a times, these unlicensed doctors refer patients to massage centres that also have no licence. These Massage centres put the patients to unscientific therapies those had exploded in many cases. These massage centres are often in media for their anti-social activities which are unspeakable. Most of the stores in Bangalore, which claims to be Ayurvedic massage centres in Bangalore, have no licenses. Same is the case in Delhi to Pune to Chennai. In Kerala few massage centres caught while massaging the foreign patients with used gearbox lubricating oil, but still they are continuing the practice. Like adulterated food, the Ayurvedic field is filled with frauds and hundreds of fake treatment shops operate in every city in India.

- Manohar