back to basics

I have struggled with dry skin since the last 6 to 7 years. Some parts of my skin on the leg suffered from acute dryness resulting in some eczema patches. Thanks to the internet I searched d a lot for it. I looked for references here and there and finally understood that dry skin is largely a factor of pollution, stress or processed foods. Given our lifestyles all of these are inevitable. How do I control either of these? Having said that, I did try and do a lot of Ayurveda therapies. Its takes some great belief in this branch of science to keep trying here. Its not been easy. Also I learnt that modern science has no known cure. At best a few shots of steroids could bring temporary relief and it comes with a high chance of a larger relapse. Fundamentally they all recommend to just simply keep the skin moist. So simple non-fragrant moisturizers work the best. All you have to do is to stop yourself from scratching the affected part. So wherever I go I am never too far away from a moisturizer. I have one in my car, in my bathroom, bedroom, office and laptop bag. I have most of the bases covered. When in doubt simply moisturize.

After getting it I realized so many people are affected by it. Now I can see the traces of it so many places. How people are affected by different sorts of it. Some people scratch and get it to bleed causing further complications. You just need to tend to it. My dad also suffered from it but not having the internet I guess he never really understood it. He had a steroid shot once to have it disappear and come back. My ayurvedic treatment managed to control it and reduce it to just a couple of spots on one leg. My doc refuses to treat it further and wants me to live with it. He says it’s not worth going for the kill. And in any case I have learned to manage it well.

Juvenile dry skin is also a huge issue with so many kids facing the problem. My guess is again bad food and bad air. Jispa swims a lot and of late she got a little bit of a dry skin problem around her nose. We used the ayurvedic red oil and saw a lot of difference. But the last bit just refused to go.

Which when I started thinking. Soap I knew is a bad thing. No soap, including dove will help. they make the problem worse. So I moved exclusive to soap free gels a few years ago. But that too were not too good the main culprit I saw was the Sodium laureth sulfate as the known allergen. So I even switched to body shop product which was without the same. Somehow I wasn’t convinced. So while thinking further I remembered that Indian tradition of having oil baths. Hmmm. That’s interesting. I also realized that my Ayurvedic doc always said to apply his oil and then have a bath. His oil is red in color and is not necessarily pleasant smelling. I also remembered learning in school that south indians as a part of tradition would have oil bath on Diwali. And of late I started putting olive oil on my skin to some decent effect. Something started to click.

Then while having a conversation with my doc he spoke about a natural loofah which called ‘pichinzha’ or something like that. Available at specific south indian specialty shops in Matunga, it is like a natural loofah. It worked well and I could see that it cleaned the body well. I was now ready for the next step.

The next time while having a shower I applied olive oil and scrubbed with the loofah and the results were amazing. Better skin, no dry feeling and clean! All naturally. Why the hell was soap invented in these times. It gets rid of sweat, dry skin and dean cells without drying the skin and according to me it works on oily and dry skin. I urged Jispa to try it. she too felt the difference and her dry skin has had a dramatic improvement. It still winter here and let’s see how it works in the summer, but it feels like heaven. Soap is out. You don’t need soap. Soap was the invention that probably helped remove real grime. But in cities we rarely have grime. Soap is good for washing hands. Full stop. The scrub along with the oil is good enough for the body. After all oil is a solvent as well for the grime. I never understood why you need to get rid of the oil from your body. The role of the oil is to keep your skin fit against germs.

Today I was researching what on earth was the loofah I was using. I knew it was organic and it looked like a weaver’s nest or something but it was more like a fruit with seeds. Here is the pic.

I couldn’t get anything by the traditional name so out of frustration I just typed in tree fruit loofah and I jumped on seeing the results. I got it and I was stunned by what I found. It’s nothing but a dried gourd. Yup. A dried gourd.

Luffa is a genus of tropical and subtropical vines classified in the cucumber (Cucurbitaceae) family. In everyday non-technical usage the name, also spelled loofah, usually refers to the fruit of the two species Luffa aegyptiaca and Luffa acutangula. The fruit of these species is cultivated and eaten as a vegetable. The fruit must be harvested at a young stage of development to be edible. The vegetable is popular in China and southeast Asia. When the fruit is fully ripened it is very fibrous. The fully developed fruit is the source of the loofah scrubbing sponge which is used in bathrooms and kitchens as a sponge tool.

The name Luffa was borrowed by European botanists in the 18th century from the Arabic name لوف lūf

In Maharashtra, India, dodka (Ridge Gourd/luffa) and ghosavala (smooth luffa) are common vegetables prepared with either crushed dried peanuts or with beans. In Northern India as well as Pakistan, Turai (thoo-raee) is the common name for Luffa.

What shit man. We eat this stuff everyday! Well, almost every day. Gourds are not really popular dishes. It’s the dish your mom makes you eat but you hate the dam thing. But they make for really neat body scrubs. In fact it so seems that the loofah word was probably taken from this luffa.

Here a picture of the Luffa cylindrical.

you have to live it to know it

Budha kaka fudina compound or fudina ark. The magic medicine that is essentially the essence of mint. A green coloured liquid with the heady taste of mint mixed with alcohol; it makes for a multipurpose medicine. It was introduced to us by my maternal granny. A few drops mixed with water were the simple solution for almost anything from cuts to stomach disorder.
I was a pretty weak kid with a fragile constitution. I would get the loosies or would vomit quite frequently. This was especially the case when we shifted to Mumbai from Dubai while I was in the fourth standard. It was always a part of the standard medical kit that my family carried on our vacations. I must in total, over my life guzzled litres of the medicine. A retching followed by the cool effect of the medicine. So far it has proved an able ally for our family over the years. Don’t bother searching for it on Google. This really invisible medicine guy is nowhere to be found on the internet. I find that really funny, for a medicine that had saved me from many a hardship.
There are two types of people, one that vomit without too much fuss, and the other that gets a violent shake while attempt to throw out what the body finds unwanted. Sadly I belong to the latter. My vomits have been a complete body shaking affair. My stomach cramps up and recoils in the act. I am thrown back and in case of a particularly bad case, I even fall down by the recoil. This happens in a bad attack of malaria, or a stomach disorder or even on a winding hill road. It’s crazy and one has to live it to understand it. I have had the misfortune of being on the wrong side on frequency and intensity. Quite a bad one.
As a child most of the time while I puked, my parents would constantly pat me on the back trying to ease the process. My legs would bang up and down and my body would move violently and my stomach would hurt as hell. They tried their best to comfort me. Come adulthood and I had to deal with this myself. This violent struggle would be my test of growing up. Would I be able to do it alone? Whenever Jasmine would be around, she would try to hang around, but blessed as she was with a decent constitution and a simple retch, I don’t think she ever understood what I went through. She’d be lost and wonder what was happening to me. The standard pat on the back would follow.
The other day I was in Delhi for an event and in the evening, at the airport, making my way back I had a bad case of food poisoning. Luckily the toilets have improved in the new terminals across India and while the feeling may not be great, at least you have clean toilets and tissue and water and soap. Luckily I had a colleague travelling with me as well, as nothing stayed in my tummy. Not even the water I had before takeoff. Vomiting in an air sickness bag, while being strapped to your seat, during takeoff was up there with my top ten worst situations to be in. The poor collegue next to me could help much except, yup, you guessed it right, pat on the back; while I shoved my head into the bag. I can vouch for the quality of the bags now for sure. Not a single leak. I got off at Mumbai to run to the loo and was sitting on the floor after the act.
Jispa has been pretty ok with her constitution as well. She hasn’t had the chance to retch too much. She doesn’t seem to get motion sickness and she by and large seems to have her mother’s health as of now. Yesterday night she woke us up at 3.45 am, urgently saying that she wanted to vomit. As she went to the loo, I woke up as well. I heard her and it did not sound too good. She was sounding similar to me. A bad cramp and a violent noise. I knew instantly what to do. So while she was sitting, I first got her water (that is the first essential), then I sat behind her and held her tight. One hand over her right shoulder and the other from under her left shoulder in a compact hold. When I throw up I have always found it difficult to focus my energies on staying up straight and not falling out. Typically all strength goes away from the hand and legs in an effort to control the stomach. This way I could firmly hold her steady while she throws up and comfort the stomach and back as well. and then give my head over the shoulder for her to lean her head against mine and relax her head as well. I knew exactly what she needed there.
Deed done, a dose of Budha kaka fudina ark and a glass of water and off you go to sleep. Oh I have been there many times. Enough to know what’s the feeling like. I asked Jispa if she liked how I held her. Yup. It was good, came the reply. Of course. Thats what fathers are meant for. We go though this shit many times in the hope that at the least, we can empathise when our kids go through it, try and blunt it and at best try and avoid a repeat. As I learnt from my childhood, puking is a good thing, body throws out the waste and it’s still better than most other diseases. There is little you can do except hold your muscles and bear it. Also going by my experience, this violence will last even into adulthood. I might not be there with her always but I hope if Jispa’s partner ever reads this post... something can learnt and used.
Last update – the medicine seemed to have held. Jispa is recovering. It might be a one off case.

har har gange

We are just back from a trip to the holy mountains. The Himalayas. To get to the Garwhal part of eth Himalayas we pass though our favourite town, Rishikesh. We don’t stay at Rishikesh proper but we stay close to Laxman Jhulla. That is as far as you can get from the proper town, but in the heart of the tourist circuit.
When you are there do visit the lovely Devraj coffee corner aka German bakery and have pizzas, pancakes, lemon mint tea and almond triangles. I got enough of the latter for office for people to wonder what on earth it was. It is some sweet almond paste on a pie crust. It’s quite amazing and tastes quite divine in contrary to its humble earthy name. Go ahead when you are in that part of the world.
But that is metaphorically divine, what we got that is really divine is ‘ganga jal’. Water from the sacred river – Ganga (ganges). We took bottles and filled them with water from the river. We got for the lady who comes home in the evening to help with the household chores. We had got one bottle for her the last time we were there and this time Jasmine insisted on getting one more. I really did not see the point but went along.
Yesterday after we arrived our lady; her name is Devki, was happy to see the Ganga jal. I asked her why would she need one bottle of it and how does she plan to use it?
She said that in her hut/slum colony (jhopadpatti) people keep coming to ask for a little Ganga jal. She asks them for a glass of water in which she mixes one capful of Ganga jal. That’s it. Only one capful. And she never lets anyone else touch the bottle. It is a precious resource not to be squandered away. But what is used for? Oh… people come all the time to her for it. When someone is dying, they make the person drink it so that the passage is smooth. Or when she is feeling unwell she mixes it with a glass full of water, or for other occasions. But yes it is a prized resource.
I felt bad getting only a bottle full. If I had known I would have ditched the almond tarts and gotten another bottle full.
Devki told us thatshe was illiterate and that she uses ganga jal for everything as that is what she has been told is good. She can’t read and hence she listens to what she has been told. I told her that while we read a lot we still are at the mercy of what people tell us. We also don’t know for sure. We also plainly do what is told. To my mind – what works for you is medicine and what doesn’t is not. I had a tonsil issue that refused to go away in my teens. Till I took a long homeopathy course. It worked enough for me never to get it back again in all its fury. Probably it was that or probably there were external factors at work. No one knows for sure, do they? Read this article on homeopathy by one blogger I follow regularly. http://girishshahane.blogspot.com/2010/06/which-is-witch.html. All I say is that standing face to face with Devki I am not prepared to say that she is wrong and that I am right.
Now I know why Jasmine made me fill two more bottles. One friend of ours has two servants and last time Jasmine got only one bottle. It had resulted in a near fight situation. It’s a good thing I listen to Jasmine. She obviously knows best.

knowing your onions

It was good to be a sickly kid after all. It comes back to haunt, oops sorry, help you when you grow older.
Jispa tonsils progressed from bad to worse. They started hurting her ears. At first they hurt a bit and then it started hurting more. We called up the paediatrician and she prescribed some ear drops which we duly bought. After we put them in her pain went sharpened. I guess the liquid medicine seemed to have exacerbated her immediate pain and she started screaming in agony. At first we tried to knock some patience in her. But then I remembered my childhood.
I used to get tonsillitis often enough and the infected would spread to the ear. The ear infection would remain in a dormant state for some time to come. Once millions of years ago, while we were in Pune at mom’s friends place, my brother and I were playing in the garden outside. I dunno what happened but my brother decided to give me a slap. Older brothers seem to love to do that kind of thing. Being the youngest of tree kids has given me enough reason (mental scar) for Jispa not to have siblings. This slap was a not so hard but it was misdirected. Instead of the cheek it hit the ear. Aw aw aw ow owowow ow.. MUMMY… I remember crying out loud and rushing in. Mommy was quite worried and my brother was aghast at what he saw as essentially overacting. According to his philosophy larding over me is fine and I complaining to a higher power was a sign of betrayal and cowardice. A squeal. It was my duty to submit wilfully to his orders. Now you know.
So mom took me aside and instantly readied her remedy. She boiled water and kept it at one side. Then covered it. she then took two napkins and got them warm on the lid. One by one she gave me a gentle .. what’s that word?.. a gentle warm _____… is it called dry fomentation? something we call it ‘sake’ in gujarati. Basically she put warm napkins on my ear, one by one. Lovely feeling and the pain just vanished away in due course.
So when Jispa really couldn’t bear it anymore, I asked Jasmine to boil water and get me some towels. I thought she understood the remedy. Ina few minutes a little warm water came in. I was like ‘I need it boiling Jasmine and get a lid’. Oh ok. She thought you wanted to put some in her ears. It’s not your fault Jasmine. I was the sickly kid. I was the one who knew all the shit that happens and all the possible remedies. So water was taken and heated to boiling point. In the meanwhile we took the towels and warmed them on the food vessels that were already hot.
I got Jispa to sleep on one side and gently put warm dry towels on her ear. In two minutes she stopped crying, in five she was better, in ten she was ok and in fifteen minutes we had enough and wanted to continue to watch her movie. Charlie and the chocolate factory. Roald Dahl might have been a great writer for kiddy books but I guess this made for a lousy movie script.
And I felt that finally after years of suffering as a kid I finally saw some light in His ways. So if you are getting married to someone with whom you might have babies, first figure out if either of you have been sick kids (especially as teenagers, since you would then have remembered the experience). If both of you have been reasonably healthy and not experienced enough of bacteria and viruses then I think you guys will be unfit to raise kids. No chance.
Jasmine is pathetic when it comes to understanding illness. I am the resident expert. She can nurture well enough, and she takes super care; but you really can’t write a treatise on hunger if you haven’t experienced it first hand.

it works

Jispa is currently down with tonsillitis. I used to be a victim of this with alarming regularity when I was little. I think it took be to graduate from college to sufficiently build enough defences to now be at reasonable ease with the tonsils. I remember the big problem with tonsils was the fever. If they got infected, besides obstructing my swallowing, my fever would shoot up. Straight 104 degrees Fahrenheit. Mom got some time to get used to this and then finally understood that this but natural with the infection. A dose of antibiotics along with paracetamol (typically crocin) would be great. I must swallowed kilotons of them by the time I grew up.
So yesterday when Jispa’s fever hit 102 levels I knew it was par for the course. The problem surfaced for us when the fever did not rapidly subside when we gave her a Crocin yesterday. Action mode kicked off. Frantic calls to the doctor were made. The doctor recommended a sponge bath. Jispa was completely irritable and hated it and she got very angry with us. She still had energy to get angry, which was a good thing. I firmly told her that we are doing what is right irrespective of what she says. After some time the fever went up to 103. This was panic mode. The doctor asked to give a dispirin and to give Gelusil along with to counter the possible acidity. This was around 12 and I ran out to get a 24 hour medical shop and get the medicine. We kept cold water strips on her head to ensure that the fever stays away from the brain.
Jispa knew this was trouble. If the fever would not subside from now she would necessarily be put in hospital.
Luckily the Dispirin took its effect. In around 35/ 40 minutes, she began to feel really warm and better.
But in the meanwhile I noticed something that has had me thinking for sometime. After we had given her the Dispirin I noticed that she had kept both her fingers crossed. While continuing the cold water strips on her forehead, I asked her, why? She was not keen / too weak to answer. I opened them, thinking it was a unintentional action. Then I asked her, if she did it for good luck. She mumbled a yes and I let the matter rest. Jasmine came in and then pointed the crossed fingers to me. according to her, it must be the germs game they have been playing. This is a funny game that they play in school. You touch and other person and say germs, the other person is deemed to have gotten the germs. If he does not touch another person on the count of ten then he has ‘melted’ due to the germs. How do you take care and stop the germs from hitting you – your fingers must be crossed. Hmmm. Must be that.
Today morning I asked her why she had done it. She said she had done it so that she did not have to go to hospital. She had crossed her fingers and said that she wished that she did not have to go to college. I asked her if she learned that somewhere. Nopes. Did it mean good luck? No. Was it from the game? I don’t know. But you could have asked God for it I remarked, why cross your fingers. Then I realised that I have taught her not to ask God for anything. In fact I have put in her mind the question of the existence of God.
I asked her if it really happens. She said she doesn’t know but it worked nah? It worked for me this time. Yes dear. It surely did. I told her that doesn’t worry. If you have to go to the hospital then possibly it might be a good thing. You might learn something, you might experience something. Have faith.
I kept thinking. We have tried not to teach her any superstition. We have tried to teach her to question God. We have tried to teach her that things remain within yourself. Trust yourself and your belief. Thank god, if you believe, for what you have but no point really asking for anything. If you see, she did not ask God for anything. She just crossed her hands and wished that she did not have to go to the hospital. Whom did she wish to? Herself.
It’s interesting. If a child is an unbiased respondent then this is an interesting case. Are we wired to believe in God. We look for strength in times of trouble. We believe that by wishing we can somehow control things around us. Wishing in some sorts seems to be a primitive form of prayer to me. If I had taught my daughter the Strength and the Glory of god, would she have wished to God instead? But since we have taught her otherwise, she wished to herself instead. She though that she could alter natural course of action by the strength of a wish or a ritual. Hence the belief in God that has evolved over years to be highly ritualistic... I don’t know. These are questions that I must be needlessly over analysing. But I think there is some merit here.
I have had my tryst with superstitions. I have had my run in with my share of bribery with the supreme lord. I have had my fall out with rituals. I have fought and so far won over these in my head and heart. But to see my eight year old do this fills me with question.
Am I denying her, the right to God? Isn’t she supposed to believe in the Supreme Being? Shouldn’t she take comfort in religion the way countless millions do, I haven’t taught her to pray but I have also taught her to respect God. I have merely asked her to question the world interpretation of God and the rituals around it.
Actually I think I must be happy. In adversity she turned to herself. She did not ask me, she did not tell me to some how stop it from happening. She asked herself. Sure, she used a ritual. She used something that gave her hope. I am glad it was something inside of her.
Suddenly as I think, we saw the movie Badmaash company, recently. In that the protagonist uses the crossed fingers when he needs extra help. Possibly that might have prompted the thought. Kids learn by all around us. They take their cues from anywhere. From places you never thought possible. Possibly it’s this or possible its other factors, or a combination of many. No one knows.
But I am surely thinking about this and this might remain in my mind of sometime to some. At the end you possibly require something, some Ritual to help you channelise your strengths. Possibly that’s what they help in. that’s why they were invented.
Possibly now I have become older and hence I can channelise my mind without a ritual hence I actively disband it’s use as a superstition. But there are still so many rituals that help us. Eating together, hugging before we leave for school. The morning waking up. (how could I not remember that). whatever.
I guess after today I might be a little more ambivalent. I was a little left of neutral. I moved a little to the right to be a little less left of neutral on the topic.
One thing is for sure, Jispa reminded me of the basic truth of life. “It worked this time nah?”. Yes Jispa. It did. It surely did.

move on

‘We never had it this easy’ the dreaded 6 words strung together in a highly prejudiced sentence invariably followed by the slightly haughty ‘we had it much tougher than you’. All parents have remarked the same in many ways. Some in anger, some in nostalgia some merely reminiscing
Ever successive generation would have things given to them on a platter, things that the previous generation struggled for, never got and in many cases never imagined. My grandfather cycled his way from one village to another to get schooled and he came all the way to Mumbai to get his doctors degree. I am sure he faced far more hardships getting to an education compared to what Jispa is facing. Seeing her schooling I feel she is sleeping on a bad of roses. We had 52-55 kids in a class, compared to her 32. That’s just the starting point.
One of the biggest ones I keep telling young kids is the brilliance of the internet. I got through school, college and horror of horrors, B school, without the fun of the internet. How on earth we did our research? How did we submit all those reports? Did we type all them? Actually type them? The biggest achievement was getting through B school without CCP… cut copy paste. We did projects the good old way. Once the projects were announced we would run to the library and try and get in line to get the books issued. There were a limited set of books there and only the fastest five to hit the library would get their hands on them. Then you read them, makes notes on another paper, write down the page numbers separately, Xerox the correct pages and distribute them among your team. Then we start making the report. Two of us would book the computer room time and one would dictate and the other would type. We barely knew how the QWERTY keyboard and we slowly managed to finish the project. Then at the end make a presentation. That too was done on over head transparency projector (OHP). What is that? It’s as below. You write on a thin clear sheet of plastic (called acetates) with OHP markers. Then you cover the points that you want hidden by a piece of a paper and slowly display them one at a time. Oh those were the days! :)
But the nostalgia trip was sparked out by an interesting happening. Jispa was down with typhoid till last week. As a part of her inoculations she had got her typhoid shots when she was much younger. Hence the typhoid she got was much milder than normal. This is similar to the chicken pox she had. A much milder outbreak. At first I couldn’t believe its typhoid. Just a not so high fever and headache. I was sure its flu and so was the doctor. Only when the fever relapsed on reducing medication did we go for the medical test which showed a minor hit of typhoid. The anti biotic course kicked in and she was fever free instantly. But she had to be at home for a week to rest. She started school this Monday.
At the end of it I was like – that’s it? that’s all she got for typhoid? Just fever! I remember vomiting my guts out when I got it. Very high fever, couldn’t eat anything, nothing stayed in the stomach too long. I remember Sleeping with a bucket next to me so that I could instantly throw up and not dirty everything on the way to the bathroom. Eesh. My stomach would hurt, my head would hurt, and the fever would give me horrible horrible dreams. Oh it was one long night mare. My blood test had come out a little complicated and we had to call in a specialist who in those days came in wearing a blazer. Hah! Twenty years ago he charged 500 bucks to come home and diagnose it and he put me on an antibiotic which was relatively new – Cifran 500. Yes, I remember the name very clearly. The medicine was something like ciprofloxacin, if I got that right. That was also expensive and my parents wondered if they should administer such a new tough and harsh antibiotic to me. Also I remember the thing that was scaring people – ‘dombivili fever’ which was similar to the typhoid thing. So I got administered the drug and I made a slow painful recovery.
I am glad that Jispa did not have to go through what I did. There has to be some benefit to progress. I am glad for her, and I am glad for us. Parents go through shit when child is unwell and more so when the child is younger. It’s impossible to do anything or understand much. Though Jispa normally has been much better and articulate about where its hurting, exactly what’s happening but still as a parent it feels so helpless to merely look on and wait for the medicine to kick in.
It is a growth process for all of us. We all come out stronger and smarter. I hope. Amen.

ayurvedic sleep

I have had this niggling lower back pain and it kind of comes and goes. That’s partly the reason I took up swimming as well. My family doc is an Ayurvedic doc, who I credit for giving me my knees back. Years of running on the road thanks to the NCC days and then tons of basketball on concrete floors had completely ruined it. Even now, I rather play on fields and grounds than tar roads. But at least they let me play and run. And I have been going to this doctor for many years. I think ever since fifth standard. I call him uncle and my daughter calls him dadu.
So thanks to this implicit trust I practically follow whatever regime he sets out for me. Ayurvedic stuff can get pretty weird. There is medicine before meals and after meals. The before meals is not like you have the medicine and sit down for a breakfast. You get up in the morning, drink a gulp of milk so that the medicine doesn’t really burn your insides will having it empty. Then you wait for some time. In my case I then wake up my daughter and then later heat the water a bit, mix the thing (after shaking the bottle well) and then gulp it down. You can’t then sit down for a meal immediately afterwards. You have to wait for atleast half an hour and then sit to eat. Sometimes you have look outside at the sky before having it. As in it cant be overcast, else the effect is less, sometimes when you have to mix with hot water means you have to let the dam thing boil for 5 minutes, then let it cool, before having it… etc etc… so when this time uncle told me to be ready for a seven day treatment for my back in the winter, I didn’t ask why. What was that line ‘yours is to do or die, yours is not to question why?’. My NCC training helped here for sure. Ok Uncle. He said but the hospital where I have to undergo the treatment is in Dharavi, infamously and allegedly the biggest slum in all of Asia. Ok. He said that hospital will do what he wants to as opposed to the high end Ayurvedic spas.
That’s why I have been at home in the first half all of this week and posting from home. Something I haven’t done so far. I like to stay away from the comp at home. Coming back to the place it quite ok. Its clean (relatively) and its almost at the periphery of the slum, so its not that bad. But I don’t know many friends who would get them treated there. The treatment involves a vigorous massage with two masseurs working together in pre set rhythm, quite unlike the north Indian akhada massage. And then you have to steam yourself for about 30 minutes. The steam chamber is some kind of a wooden casket (coffin perhaps) into which they send in specially cooked steam with some herbs from a pressure cooker, with a pipe going in from where the whistle normally is placed. Quite a contraption. Only your head comes out as you sleep on planks placed about three inches apart and the steam blowing from the bottom.
As I do this treatment early morning, it’s pretty nice and relaxing. So much so that I feeling like sleeping in the steam casket. Today was one such session. After the massage I get into the casket and he closes the top. There is always a sense of drama when he closes it as the space for the neck to protrude out has to match with where I am lying. A delicate twist of fate and I might history. Nooo…. Sorry for the overacting but he has to close it slowly as I adjust myself to fit right into the opening. As he closes the top I realize that it’s not steaming as usual. I tell him to fix it… and pop I am asleep. After some time I tell him it’s still not steaming. He figures does something while I am asleep. After a few minutes (instantly or a long time, I don’t know) I feel the warm steam as I am deep in my slumber. After I have had enough I ask to free me from the coffin as I emerge all groggy.
I see the time outside as I wipe myself… wow… I had slept for an hour. I never knew that planks of wood can be so comfortable to sleep in, while the steam in blowing. That was my most seeming uncomfortable comfortable bed/ casket/ coffin whatever, I have ever slept in.