Vedic Garden
We have just returned from a week in an ayurvedic retreat so peaceful and quiet that you could almost hear the herbs break through the foliage. Keraleeya Ayurveda Samajam, 95 km from Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu, and the same distance from Kozhikode, was set up over 100 years ago in Shoranur, on the banks of the Nila river in the heart of Kerala's Palakkad district. This makes it among the earliest ayurvedic centres in Kerala. The approach to the ashram-clinic-hospital is not ostentatious. In fact, the complex, spread over eight acres, is lined with traditional tiled bungalows, cottages, and rows of trees and herbal plants. Anyone in quest of five-star comfort must instantly catch the return taxi.
Those registering for treatment have a range of cottages to choose from: the most expensive cottage is available for Rs 1,000 per day. This is a large hall, with two beds, a sofa-set and a TV with all the channels. The hall has an open verandah in the rear, leading to a large, neat toilet. The most important space in the cottage is the "treatment" room. This has a large table, made of teak wood, darkened with herbal oils. It is on this table that the human body is celebrated, treated with artful hands gliding over oil and herbal powder combined according to the shlokas written by the sages in times immemorial.
Having lived in the south in the early '80s as editor of a newspaper which included extended driving spells through each district of Kerala, I find it remarkable that I was not lured by the ayurvedic ashrams then. First, we were much younger to require ayurvedic rejuvenation. More important, there were very few ayurvedic centres. Just as Satyajit Ray, Ravi Shankar and Ali Akbar Khan acquired international stature by their exposure first in London, likewise ayurveda has made a spectacular return to its home after having acquired audiences in the west and found a niche in enterprising five-star hotels in our metros. What clinched the deal for me was a visit to the CPI(M) headquarters in Thiruvananthapuram last year. The secretary general of the party, Pinarayi Vijayan, was exuding good health. He had just returned from a month's treatment at a nearby ayurvedic clinic.
The Dirty Dozen
Doctors at the ashram were flattered when a dozen friends from the adjacent district of Trichur returned to kas every third month for treatment. Their pleasures were, however, terminated when the wives of the "massage enthusiasts" turned up with their tale. The "dirty dozen" were members of a private watering hole where they drank themselves sick. They have been directed to the local AA.
Plato In The Tropics
It has been quite a journey from my village, Mustafabad in Rae Bareli, where we were in the care of a "hakim". Hikmat (the trade of hakims) was described as the "Unani" system. Unan meant Greece. Clearly, the system rode in on the back of neo-Platonism, which informed the renaissance in Europe and early Sufi thought in the east in places like Basra, Iraq. In my childhood, hakims were an institution in Lucknow. Hakim Sahib Alam’s clinic in old Lucknow was, after dusk, the centre for the city’s literary elite. Just as Bhakti and Sufism influenced each other, so did ayurveda and the Unani systems. The latter, over a period of time, was in popular perception unfortunately identified with Muslims—vaids for Hindus, hakims for Muslims. But it would be unfair to explain the growing popularity of ayurveda only in terms of the decline of other competitive systems. How has this ancient Indian system remained confined to that intellectually fertile strip of a land called Kerala? I put it down to the enlightened rulers of Travancore and Cochin, who preserved indigenous systems without entering into any quarrel with allopathy brought by the British. Keralaeeya Ayurveda Samajam itself was a result of investments and efforts by the Zamorin of Calicut and Maharaja of Cochin.
The Well-Healed Lala
Just as health spas in Europe were accessible only to the rich until very recently, ayurvedic centres like Kottakkal attracted the opulent. Ramnath Goenka, the colourful founder of the
Indian Express, was a regular at Kottakkal. He also pampered his editor, Sri Mulgaokar, by persuading him to relax at Kottakkal every year. kas is more authentic as each oil, powder, concoction derived from any combination of 500 herbs is manufactured on the premises in large open vats over burning wood, men with giant ladles stirring the mixture. Exactly as it was done a century ago.
The mushroom growth of indigenous spas is a phenomena of the past decade, not totally unrelated to globalisation. Ayurveda, or the science of life, has treatment for every disease: for these you have to contact a good vaid on a regular basis. But the use of ayurvedic clinics as spas-cum-hospitals have empirically shown remarkable results in scores of ailments. If you have high blood pressure, it will be stabilised in two days. What is more, I was able to read two excellent books in a week.