panchkarma

SO lazy about writing, i know, its ridiculous.
The thing is.... mom and i have been so busy, interviewing ayurvedic doctors, arranging appropriate accommodations for our stint of panchkarma, and then actually doing the panchkarma and all of the side duties that that entails, that I have had little time to hit the internet. And you'd think that once you came away to India "on vacation", you'd have all the time in the world, right? not so, not so. A vacation it is not. A little time to reflect and breathe, yes, it is that, but it it is inspersed between hairy rickshaw rides and negotiations in the market and negotiations with landlords and ..... well, you get the picture.

So i'll just get the point right here and now. We are now on day 5 of our 10 days of panchkarma. panchakarma, in case i hadn't told you before is the ancient traditional ayurvedic medicine of cleansing and detoxing the body. It is used for healing many conditions and for nipping in the bud anything that might be developing in the body in the way of sickness or ailments. Boy does it involve a LOT of oil and special dietary recommendations. It is all I can do to follow it all. Thankfully, mother and I are undertaking this together, so we have one another for emotional support. I don't know if i could do it alone.

We go to the clinic everyday for 6 hours, from 8am to 2pm. We consult with the doctor, he takes our pulse, asks us a bunch of questions, we have a good solid chat and then he sends us to our own personal rooms with our own personal attendants. I know, I know, i sounds a little like living in the harem at court in Mughal India, beging waited on hand and foot. And it is a little bit like that, EXCEPT, the digs are not what most westerners expect. It takes a bit of getting used to at first, admittedly. I had been exposed to an Indian "treatment room" from my last trip, so it was not so shocking for me. That first day though, i wondered, as they separated my mother and i, how she would react, how she would fair, under the circumstances. Initially you feel as if you don't want to touch anything, as if no surface is clean or sanitary. It is not the sparkling, shining, sterilized environment of a treatment room in the west. No siree Bob.

It is clean, by Indian standards. I have even smelled bleach in the place (the one and only time i have every smelled bleach anyplace in India, EVER). I think the problem lies in the fact that things are clean, everythings is just really old and worn and used, because there is so much less money here than in Canada or other western countries, things are used until they are unusable any more. They are not thrown out because they have a scratch or a blemish or because the paint is faded, like they are in Canada. The second contributing factor is that the processes of panchkarma involved and incredible amount of OIL. Medicated oil, herbed oil, oils for this and oils for that. Oils that go in your nose and burn like a mother in your nasal cavity but are supposed to balance your nervous system, oil for in your ears, oil for in your eyes! (yes, indeedy, this is true, it is one of our treatments and it is amazing, it actually clears your eyesight, my mom's macular degeneration has totally improved already). Then there is the 2 massages per day that you get, of course you need oil for those. Now I have to say at this junction, that any program that begins with a hot oil massage every morning is alright by me. And now I have to mention the oil enemas. Totally not as uncomfortable or unpleasant as you might think. Don't mind it a bit and its totally natural. So of course there is a special herbed oil for that. Then there is a special oil they use just for your head. And then we steam. Its all very nurturing. I sleep half the time, and my little Indian girl attendant who speaks about 4 words of English: "lunch", "good morning", "turn" and "ok?". "OK?" with a question mark. She is the cutest thing. she dresses me and unscrews the lid off my water bottle and hands it to me and helps me sit up in my bed and dries me off after the steam. Its hilarious. I imagine myself a queen in India during ancient times when she does these things. Its the only way to enjoy it. I just stand there with my arms outstretched and let her do everything, because she is insistant. If I try to do anything myself, she sort of pushes my hands away. It was a challenge for me at first because of course I am used to taking care of myself and doing everything for myself. I've never had such a personal attendant before.

The doctor is great. He is the same doctor I had last time I was here and he was introduced to me by my Reiki teacher. His office is on the other side of town. Two rickshaws away from where we are staying. He can take your pulse and then tell you all the things you are experiencing, if you are constipated, he knows, if your energy is low, he knows, if you have depression, he knows, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, stiffness or pain in your joints.... arthritis.... you name it. Its amazing. and he has the most beautiful kind face and eyes. His family is equally beautiful. His wife is the one in charge of the panchkarma and she oversees everything.

So our typical day... we get up at 6, get ready and head out to the street, flag down a share rickshaw into the market. Get out walk a block to catch another rickshaw. They are just like busses, they have routes that they go, you just have to ask them if they are going where you want to go. The only thing is that they don't have set schedules. Many rickshaws will ply the same route and the timings just depend on... well, it depends on all the variables one encounters in India: traffic, cows, number of passengers, the mood of the driver, whether he needs to stop and have short chat witha buddy or not, but generally they are very effective and efficient modes of transportation.
We arrive at the clinic at around 8 after disembarking our final rickshaw and having a pleasant morning walk through a rather nice neighborhood to the clinic.
So then we each have our consult with the doctor, then we each go into our rooms which have a bed and are heated with a space heater. We disrobe and get into our bed and it all starts with a full body hot oil massage. LOTS of oil. The premise being that the body needs to be well oiled, well lubricated, and elimated of all dryness. Well, this is so true. After 5 days my body has never been so well lubricated, let me tell you.
So we get the massage, then we get the steam. There are two steams. One is in a steam box lying down with just your head sticking out. The other is seated and the blow hot steam on you, first your back, then your front. The steam has medicine and herbs specific to your disposition and condition to balance you.
Then we drink the warm herbed milk with ghee (clarified butter). Now. I kinda like the warm oily herbed milk. Sure it has a layer of melted butter on the surface, and some other unidentified smell to it, but it also has nutmeg and i am allowed to add honey to taste, so to me, i imagine it is warm egg nog at christmas, and it goes down without an issue. Mom, on the other hand, cannot get this concoction down. She just cannot. It makes her gag. So I don't know what other thing the Dr. is giving her to get this stuff into her. I haven't asked. But its kinda funny.

Anyhow, and so then begins the oiling of the things. Some days it is nose and ears, other days it is nose, ears and eyes, still other days it is the nose and the crown of your head. For me also, they are applying hot oil treatments to my back and neck, which feel wonderful. You know, for my lower back that had the disk issue. And it really feels good. Then of course, the friendly oil enema, which is totally fine. Actually, they do that after the steaming part, and you can go to the toilet anytime. Is this too much information? I apologize if you tuned in to this blog looking to read all about lovely beautiful pleasant things and such. but this is life, and this is health. We do this because we believe in healing our own bodies, and so though it doesn't look pretty maybe, it is real and true.
So after all that, we get another marma massage, where she does all the marma points on the hands and feet. I almost always fall asleep during this part. Always surprised when my little Indian girl whispers "ma'am, lunchy". That is how she pronounces lunch, its lunchee. so cute. and by then i am so somewhere else, floating far away. It is a surprise for me to come back and to eat lunch. The surprise is almost because the place i had been floating.... the being i had been there, is not a being who takes lunch, not an entity who needs lunch, or dinner or breakfast. So I come back into my body, a little reluctantly. I sit up and have a plate of kichari brought to my bedside. It is delicious and nutritious. Kichari is traditional food of the yogis and food of the ailing. It is very easy to digest and very nutritious, the equivalent would be chicken noodle soup in Canada. It is made of boiled rice and moong dahl (green lentil) and vegetables and cumin and other things, boiled until it is a mushy consistency.
So I eat that, and then I get dressed and have another consultation with the wife of the Doctor now. She asks me a bunch of questions about how I am and what I am doing and then gives me all the dietary restrictions of things i can and can't eat for the next day. It is very very specific her instructions. They also give us herbs to take with meals and there are very specific instructions for those too.
its pretty crazy.
but i feel pretty amazing.
my head is so clear.
my body feels loose and pain free.
all the stiffness in my neck is gone, my back feels better and i am way more flexible as the inflammation has been melted and massaged out of me by the steaming and massages.
so we have 5 more days to go. apparently it only goes deeper, the process, and new things will be added as we go.

wow.
ok,
so that is what we are doing right now. There you have it... in all the gory details.


so funny, i am sitting in a bean bag chair right now, writing in a cafe called "Muktis". We just had a power surge and because I have my trusty laptop, i didn't lose everything i have written, cause i have a battery backup. that's pretty cool. a benefit of lugging my laptop half way across the world, i am somewhat immune to India's frequent power outages. I wouldn't call them black-outs, like Nepal had last trip.