In many areas of interaction in India, negotiations and ‘bargaining’ play an important role. This holds true for doctor-patient interactions as well, especially in the case of small-scale practitioners of Ayurveda, Unani, Homeopathy and other non-biomedical traditions. These practitioners often prescribe a treatment that lies outside of their official medical specialization, which creates a proliferation of various eclectic/hybrid therapeutic forms. Based on data from two-month summer research in a Central Himalayan hill station, Khalikova examines the diversity of medical practices that emerge on the boundaries of state-defined categories of medical pluralism, and the roles patients play in the creation of this diversity.