Puritanism

Mysore, India

Suzanne and I checked into the Indus Valley Ayurvedic Center. After all it seems like a logical thing to do. We have been on the road for almost four months now so a respite of some sort seemed warranted. Additionally, the mysterious word "Ayurvedic" has been flashed before our eyes on a constant stream of signs and flyers. Taxis and rickshaw drivers have continually asked us “You want Ayurvedic?”

It would have been silly to come all this way and leave without at least some knowledge of this odd sounding word. As I have come to learn “Ayrvedic” is an ancient form of medicine evolved in India. Ayrvedic doctors are able to cure both the ailments you bring to their attention and those that you only find out about during the course of treatment.

Seated in a Spartan office and armed only with a scale and an unused stethoscope the doctor asked me about my health. Believing myself to be generally healthy I told her that I had almost no complaints but that my back has been a chronic source of problems over the years. She made a cursory note of this. I have since concluded that she also diagnosed me with a puritanical cultural heritage and prudishness.

Though the treatment I received seems to have had something to do with my back it was my other ailments that were both treated and completely cured.

The smell of incense and the delicate glow of an oil lamp greeted me along with the two warm smiles of my therapists on my first treatment.

“You change.” A loin cloth barely the requisite 9 ½ inches in the front and with nothing more substantial than dental floss on the sides and back landed in my hand.

What is an experienced traveler to do other than pretend that he is not in the least bit shocked? So I stood all but naked in a dimly lit room. Only now did I notice the ropes hanging from the ceiling and the wooden slab of a table in the center. In the far corner sat a stove with pots of heated oil. The smiles of my therapists grew.

With the broad sweep of a hand toward the table I was told, “Yes, you lie down now.”

My naked butt felt cold on the heavily varnished wood and I absently wondered why the table had gutters and several drain holes at either end. If I had been thinking clearly it would have been obvious. Me naked, two other men, hot oil and a table with drainage (at this point the ropes on the ceiling did not come into play.)

Lubricated and smooth as a ball bearing I was pushed, pulled and bounced around the table as if it was the most natural thing in the world. The experience might have been cathartic or even relaxing had my mind not kept slipping back to its puritan Christian heritage, “I am 99.5% naked, slathered in oil, in a dark room, two men whom I have never met are pulverizing my body and there are ropes hanging from the ceiling.”

“Yes you lie on floor now.”

It is hard to argue or even put up a struggle without friction. The mere act of climbing down from the table required all my balance, coordination and will power. The floor very quickly became the most logical place to be. Though I had parted company with friction I was still in the grasp of gravity.

This then is how I came to be lying on the floor, slathered in oil as two men whose names I never did get walked over my body while using ropes on the ceiling for balance.

Several days later my back does not feel noticeably different though I think that my other problems are greatly diminished.