Encounters of the wrong kind

I am still trying to get my head around the Ayurvedic massage, I mean around the concept not in the context of any physical contortion. Did Patanjali recommend it in his Ashtanga yoga or did Sushruta or Charaka mention it in their books on Ayurveda? What is the link between nasty warm herb infused nasty smelling oil being poured on you or being rubbed into you and healing? There were far too many questions and too few answers, so I took the explorers route and decided to try it out for myself.

The appointed day came and I walked into the center which was well lit up and friendly looking place with Ayurvedic powders, soaps, shampoos and oils lined neatly on shelves. I walked up to the counter not knowing what to expect, a wiry man greeted me asked me my name and made some officious looking entries in a register and asked me to step (was that a tarantula in the poem ‘won’t you step into my parlor?’) into this room with a complicated looking wooden table in its center. The room itself bore the look of having been drenched in oil while the table glistened with it. For some strange reasons the table started reminding me of medieval torture alters, but I dismissed the thought and got into the uniform (ahem .. I mean the loin cloth).

Lying motionless on the oily table with large quantities of oil on me I couldn’t but help noticing the extremely convoluted human psyche and the perverse sense of humor of our existence. Probably Freud attained enlightenment on a masseur’s table, but one can only guess who the masseur would have been in his case though. Here you are enjoying the de-stressing effect on you as the masseur works the kinks out of your body, but you are also uncomfortable with the experience all at the same time … ‘did he linger too long there’ … ‘damn can’t even move, least he thinks I am enjoying….’ … ‘this is very awkward’ …. If all of this wasn’t rattling enough I was trying not to giggle one because I am a little ticklish and two the entire irony of the situation (mine) was a little too amusing! Finally the hour was up and the masseur handed me a towel a bar of soap and pointed me to the nearest bathroom. Whew!

From a sheer scientific standpoint I feel that except for the very debatable medicinal qualities of the Ayurvedic oil used the technique itself is pretty mundane. A hot tub relaxes you to a large extent without jangling your psyche and if the kinks have not worked out yet, you can sit longer or even sip a glass of wine while in the tub. And if oil is the only difference than I know why the infamous Asian massage parlors do well, they have the oil, they have the table but minus the discomfort and awkwardness of the situation (if you catch my drift). Of course, there is a flip side to those parlors as well especially in case you have to deal with guilty conscience arising from happy endings J!.