Ayurvedic Magic

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I’m not sure why I choose these places to stay—off the main tourist track in areas where travelers don’t reallly want to go. I chose Mary’s place outside of Chalakudi because she said it would be a rural experience, complete with rice paddies and maybe a palm reader and other local events. It’s rural, alright, but a little noisier than I expected, and there are a lot of people around.

The day after I arrived my neck was hurting terribly, an old problem. The dense pillow did not help at all, so I got a softer one from Mary. I asked Biji, the woman next door who is cramming me with food, about a good Ayurvedic clinic. She recommended the Government hospital about 2 miles distant. Didn’t sound very good to me. I envisioned long lines, sub-standard facilities, dirty conditions.

Nonetheless, I rode an auto-rickshaw to the two-story government building. The man behind the receptionist window asked me to pay two rupees to see the doctor. That’s about 5 cents. I guess that’s how a government hospital works.

About four people were waiting outside the doctor’s office. The receptionist came out and ushered me to the front of the line, which did not seem to make me very popular with the people waiting. Even while another patient was still talking with the doctor, I was sent into her office, behind the curtain across the door. That patient soon left. A kindly-looking woman asked me what the problem was.

I explained that I had received several Ayurvedic treatments earlier in the trip for my ultra-sore neck that had been that way for years. She pressed her finger on my neck.

“Pain?”

“Yes.”

“We will do massage, then after that I will see you.”

My, I thought, what would a massage in the Ayurvedic government hospital be like?

A pretty young woman introduced herself, and told me the even younger woman standing next to her would give the treatment. “She’s in training.”

Okay, I’m just going to go with the flow, I thought.

From the waiting room I heard the squealing of hordes of young children. Each squeal echoed off the walls. Seemed like there was a day care for toddlers in the government building. Those squeals never ceased, even as I was ushered into a room with a chair and dirty white walls. After I removed my top, the thin young woman with a concerning smile applied the Ayurvedic oils to my neck, shoulders, arms, and back, slathering, slathering, as I sat in the chair. The oil slopped down to the top of my pants as she kept working it into my back.

After 20 minutes they asked me how I was feeling. A little better, I said, but this was a problem from years of stress, I concluded, and was no small problem. The older woman told me to return the next day for another massage.

After I handed over 150 rupees to the smiling receptionist (about $2.00), I started walking back and flagged down an auto rickshaw. I felt good, but the inevitable tiredness after one of these massages overtook me.

The next day the young woman, whom I learned was an Ayurvedic doctor, told me they would be doing a full body massage. Yet a third woman, another doctor, joined my team of caregivers. She told me I would be “inaugurating” an Ayurvedic table the hospital had just acquired. They were waiting for its support stand to arrive. After an hour’s wait, I saw it being delivered. The newest doctor showed me the table.

“It’s neem wood, from another doctor’s practice.”

I’ve been on Ayurvedic tables before and they are remarkable. Solid wood, sculpted in special places for the head to rest, and chiseled at one end with a hole for the oil to drain. This one seemed ancient. Dark, earthy looking, hard. A wonder to behold. Thousands of patients must have laid their bodies on this thing to accept the oils of a traditional healing technique intended to restore wellness. I was sharing in that tradition, here in this government hospital in Kerala.

“We hoped we could use this today,” the newest doctor told me. “But the supports are not sturdy enough and you might fall.”

Oh great, I could have hopped aboard this massive raft and crashed to the floor, sliding along in my Ayurvedic river of oil.

So instead they took me to the room across and pointed to a long tiled platform, directing me to lie down for the full body massage. It was cool, and very hard, and when I looked above me, there was a massive flue reaching high above me. This had been a cooktop, where meals had been prepared for who knows what, and now I was to be slathered on the cooktop. The young woman administering the oils must have gotten a sore back as she bent over me, working away.

The oil application felt good, and after I paid the increased treatment fee of 500 rupees (about $7.50) the three doctors and I met in the oldest doctor’s office to discuss my progress.

“I feel so happy, but it still hurts. I think it’s from the stress of a previous job I left ten years earlier.”

They were all so sympathetic, and talked about how women have to shoulder so much stress, what with caring for children and then working as well.

I balked at their suggestion to take internal medicine. But the next day I relented. They went for the big guns then, a kizhi treatment, the traditional practice of filling a cloth with herbs, heating it, and pounding my body. And now the 50-year-old or older (they weren’t sure) table was stable, and I was laid upon it. The treatment provider pummeled me and rubbed me with the herb bolus, alternating between two of them, heating one while she used the other. Each pummel was brief, so the heat did not burn, but it was still very hot. Strangely enough, I enjoyed this abuse, and drifted into a relaxed reverie. I’ve had this kind of treatment before, but there was something about lying in this dingy room with the fluorescent tube light and children’s squeals echoing on the other side of the wall.

Afterwards my skin felt smooth as silk, and I was nearly falling-down tired. When the three doctors and I met once again, I told them of my tiredness and inability to sleep, and was prescribed a powder and a sleep aid, all herbs, they said. Boil the powder with green gram, the doctor prescribed, then drink a glass in the morning and afternoon. For energy, she said. The powder smelled like the herbs pounded onto my body. And I’m to do the yogic breathing for energy, too. I asked the doctor if she did that in the morning.

“Oh no, don’t have time,” she laughed.

“Let us take a selfie,” one of the doctors insisted. We all gathered for the inevitable selfie photo. The youngest woman who administered the treatment was nursing a burn she got while working on me—she had also tripped over the new table support and had hurt her foot. She was unable to join us in the photo.

“Thanks for caring for me. I feel like your guinea pig,” I said.

One of the doctors knew what I meant and laughed. This doctor was the one who mentioned having read the book, “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus,” which I have also read. She said that sometimes she thought the world would be a better place if women were in charge of running it.

“You are our guest,” she said. “And we want you to feel good while you are here.” Indeed, such kindness I have experienced as I seek wellness in India from an Ayurvedic hospital! I will seek more treatments, as long as they’ll prescribe them and as long as the pain persists, and I will continue accepting their gentle care.

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Photos

Traditional Ayurvedic Table, At least 50 Years Old
I was the first patient to “inaugurate” this table.

Cooktop where I received a full body massage
They had removed the pots.