Dr Issac Mathai, one of the few invited to Queen Elizabeth's funeral

BENGALURU: Bengaluru has been the favourite spot for the royals who have frequented the city for medical treatment. No surprise then that Dr Issac Mathai, the holistic physician who has been a health consultant for the British royal family for more than 15 years, was one of the few to be invited to the United Kingdom for the last rites of Queen Elizabeth II, who passed away recently.

“As I was staying very close to Buckingham Palace, the street was packed with people coming to pay their last respects to the Queen. Huge crowds thronged Green Park to pay their tributes with candles and flowers. The entire city was filled with people from all over the UK and abroad.

The huge security arrangements and the crowd management was highly commendable. People maintained a very sombre atmosphere as a mark of respect,” says Dr Mathai, adding, “When I visited the St. James’s Palace to meet with His Majesty and Her Majesty for a consultation and to convey my condolences, the entire area was completely cordoned off by security with a huge police presence. As my name was on the list, it was very easy to get in.” Dr Mathai’s relationship with the royal family goes back to the ’80s when he was based in London and organised the First International Health Conference in collaboration with the British Holistic Medical Association where King Charles III was a patron.

Later in 2018, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and HM King Charles III jointly inaugurated the AYUSH Centre for Saint Charles Hospital, London. Dr Mathai was instrumental in the opening of this centre, for which he is the advisor now. “During their visit here, King Charles III and Camilla, Queen Consort enjoyed the organic farm with 4,000 trees, several vegetables and fruits and the garden growing thousands of medicinal plants in a sustainable way.

They visited the medicinal garden and were fascinated by how each Ayurvedic medicine takes several weeks to prepare and thousands of herbs go into each preparation,” he says, adding, “They experienced different Ayurvedic and Naturopathic rejuvenation treatments and yoga. Homeopathy has been the first choice of medicine for the British royal family for more than 100 years,” he says. Eminent personalities like Nobel laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Oscar-winning Hollywood actor Emma Thompson, royal families from the Middle-East and Europe have stayed in Soukya.