Family Portrait

Styrofoam Beat

Drums made of styrofoam and sticks, these boys were playing a mad beat on the streets of Delhi.

India: Surreal Familiarity

Being back in India is both surreal and familiar. My friend Sonam said that when he saw me at the airport I was walking as if India was my second home. Familiarity does not however remove the feeling of being a stranger in a foreign land, especially in a metropolis like Delhi, with its frenzied pace and relentless motion, and the impersonal feeling this gives. Nor does it hide my differentness as evidenced by the penetrating stares.

With each trip, I continue to learn how to use the Metro – Delhi’s subway system – with it’s vast number of rail lines, platforms and stations. And passengers. Yesterday I waited for the metro to arrive in the crowded platform. The uniformed man blowing directives through a whistle tried to get everyone to form single lines, to no avail. Few paid attention and those who were close to the front did not want to lose their place. It seemed everyone had to be somewhere in a hurry because when the metro arrived there was a mad rush to get onboard and secure one’s place before the doors closed shut.

Less than five minutes later another train arrived. In one giant pushing motion, squeezed tightly together as one entity, we piled onto the subway, everyone jostling to find a place to stand and hang on. My arm was curled around the waist of a young man to reach the pole in the center of the aisle, where I found a space, among the other hands, to hang on. A few minutes into the ride, a gloved hand started caressing mine. I moved it down the pole, the hand followed and continued its caress. When I looked over in the direction it seemed to be coming from I caught the eyes of a man in a leather jacket and gloves. I again moved my hand, and close enough to someone else’s so that if he continued, he would have to be caressing both hands. The man to his right probably wouldn’t have appreciated it, so he stopped.

India is crowded, chaotic and alive! The streets are a virtual panoply of activity – whirring sewing machines, haircutting and shaving, children playing, men sleeping, women laundering, dogs scavenging, beggars begging, food cooking,vendors hawking, brooms sweeping, metallurgists pounding, fires burning. It never sleeps. All night long from my fourth story hotel room I hear the roar of traffic, the blare of horns. Fortunately it stops once the dreams start, but sometimes when I wake I feel the dust of the streets in my eyes. And I wonder if I slept at all.

Exploiting the Commonwealth Games Laborers

Enroute to India, and about to be in Delhi, I am posting a story that is particularly troubling.

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India has less than a year before the start of the 2010 Commonwealth Games in New Delhi.

It is the biggest international sports event the country has hosted in two decades.

But as pressure mounts to complete venues on time, there is growing criticism over the treatment of workers.

Many are saying they lack even basic facilities.

They are crammed in plastic tents and entire families are forced to live there without sanitary facilities.

Perna Suri reports from the Indian capital.

Indian workers allege exploitation

The People of Pahalgam, Kashmir

This video is a collection of photos from my second visit to Pahalgam in 2005. It’s one of my favorite places; the people are beautiful and the landscape is gorgeous.

The Kashmiris are dying for their freedom (azad), yet a resolution seems a long way off. Neither India nor Pakistan want to relinquish their stronghold on a state that wants to be independent from both countries decades old politics, which many feel are related to water rights. Fighting in the region has worsened since the Mumbai attacks.

I hope to return to Pahalgam one day and gift these amazing people with their portraits!

Slumdog Millionaire: Poverty is Nobody’s Fairy-tale

After seeing the film Slumdog Millionaire a few weeks ago, I felt not jubilant, but disturbed. Having been to India five times and (collectively) spending 1.5 years in various locales, I’ve experienced the fascinating, difficult country firsthand.

Poverty is ever-present. The slums are not always hushed into dark pockets of the cities; they may exist alongside opulence on busy boulevards. Though, some slum areas, as shown in the film, are being leveled with high-rise complexes put in their place, further displacing the marginalized. And this is cause for concern.

A good friend of mine, a native of Calcutta, recently told me this in a correspondence:

In India the situation is getting from bad to worse. There is NO accountability at all. The new change now is that many of the downtroddens are rising up to protest / to demand . The Adivasis are rising. The Maoists movement is spreading like wild fire in India. They have support bases in Nepal and Bangladesh. They are as bad as the criminals in other parties. We have lots of political parties with all kinds of names, but basically the goal is the same – ” to come to power and to remain in power ” at any cost.

In Delhi the slums are being destroyed and people are being displaced in preparation for the 2010 Commonwealth Games:

India razes slums, leaves poor homeless

Maiming children, as they did in the film by blinding a boy, is not simply a movie phenomenon nor is it a rare occurrence. If a begging person is missing part of a limb or if they are blind, more money may be extracting from the unwitting. It plays on our emotions.

During my last trip to India I had a personal encounter with a young boy who was a victim of intentional maiming. I was walking down Main Bazaar in Delhi when he spotted me. Westerners with money enough to travel to India are prime targets.

He came running towards me and then trotted alongside me, parroting “fifty rupees!, fifty rupees!”. It was the desolate look in his eyes that first caught my attention. Seeing his missing hand explained the expression.

The end of his arm was covered with a clean, stark white bandage. It stood in sharp contrast to the layers of dirt on his face, feet and clothes.

I stopped walking and asked him “who did this to you?” Both enraged and haunted by this child’s circumstance, I continued to try talking with him but he only knew enough english to beg for money, not converse with a foreigner.

I did not give the child 50 rupees but settled on ten in exchange for his portrait. I felt a twinge of guilt about that, but I knew I would not be allowed one without compensation.

I saw the boy a few days later in nearly the same stretch of Main Bazaar. However, this time his bandage was bloody and dirty. He was jumping up and down with his mutilated arm in the air, trying to get the attention of a (western) couple who were in conversation and paying no attention to him.

A month later, in Dharamsala, I met a man who had also seen this boy when he was in Delhi. He told me he saw him squeezing the end of his arm to make the bandage bloodier, and hopefully, more profitable.

Those who’ve not spent time in India wouldn’t necessarily know what parts of the film Slumdog Millionaire are fact versus fiction, though it’s well known that India is home to a wealth of impoverished people.

The fiction is the fairy-tale ending, and the sense it gives moviegoers, that despite deep poverty and dangerous conditions, the people are still smiling happy, even dancing for joy in the railway station, a place where many street children make their home.

I think this illusion gives us permission to go back to life as usual after the credits roll and the curtain falls. Their situation and suffering is not something we need concern ourselves with. Besides, they’re happy. Aren’t they?

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See: Slumdog Millionaire’s child actors still live in ‘grinding poverty’ in Mumbai

Rubina Ali and Azharuddin Ismail, two of the child actors in “Slumdog Millionaire,” are still living in the slums of Mumbai, despite the film’s $14 million budget and worldwide success. Ali earned 500 British pounds ($710) for one year’s work and Ismail earned 1700 pounds ($2414), “less than many Indian domestic servants“:

Both children were found places in a local school and receive £20 a month for books and food. However, they continue to live in grinding poverty and their families say they have received no details of the trust funds set up in their names. Their parents said that they had hoped the film would be their ticket out of the slums, and that its success had made them realise how little their children had been paid.

Pancha Karma @ Siby’s

There are three ayurvedic clinics in the tiny district of Bhagsu that offer pancha karma. I’ve recently met a few patients of the Asho clinic presently receiving treatment. One of them revealed that she feels it is very aggressive, that there is no sense of sympathy from the doctor for how exhausted she feels. She is being given a second dose of the diarrhea medication because the doctor of the clinic does not feel that eleven bowel movements was significant enough. She’s understandably, not happy about that, and at this point just hoping that she will come out on the other side of it feeling renewed and whole.

I also had a chat with a patient I had met at Siby’s who had seven days of basti treatment, followed by the therapeutic diarrhea medication. She said the cramping pain she experienced, that began as soon as she took the medication, was unbearable, and that she’ll never do it again. She looked as exhausted as she said she felt.

Friends have been curious to know how I am feeling post-pancha karma. If I notice any improvements in my health. I think I am still in the convalescence period; I’m tired, though my level of energy is quite high in comparison to what is was during treatment. My digestive/eliminative system was sluggish the first few days, though Siby informed me that was normal. I took a dose of the ayurvedic formula triphala the third night, a combination of three fruits that have a cleansing action. It is said to scrape ama (toxins) from the body. It seemed to help.

Thus far, I’ve noticed one thing. I’ve been able to stand in the sun without my eyes burning, indicative that the treatment benefited liver function, since the health of the eyes is related to the health of the liver. Other then that, nothing extraordinary, yet.

Undergoing a pancha karma program requires fortitude. While nine days felt the most I could endure, it is not enough time to address chronic health issues. Per Ayurveda recommendations, seasonal cleansings are ideal. And fasting one day per week.

Regarding my review on the administration of the treatment.

One essential ingredient in any healing program is the amount of heart the staff puts into their work. The heart of Siby’s staff is sincere and caring. From the beginning to the end. But there were times in betwixt the start and finish when their inconsistency weakened their proficiency.

With the massages, maximum benefit is offered when there are two practitioners, each working on one side of the body, both in synchronistic rhythm. However, during the massages I received the synchronicity was often missing. Some of the movements were sloppy, careless. Yet – from my personal knowledge of pancha karma – I think the therapists have been well trained. The problem seemed to be fatigue. Usha had been suffering from health problems during the duration of my treatment. And when the roster is full, patients are scheduled on the hour, with no reprieve between treatments. Some of the massages are rigorous, requiring a good deal of strength and energy. With no time to rest between sessions, there is no time for them to catch their breath. The rhythm gets scattered.

While finishing my final meal at the clinic, my program complete, I was asked by two female patients if I was happy with the treatment. They told me they were not feeling satisfied with the massage because the therapists’ movements were not harmonized. Siby walked in on our conversation and was apprised of the matter. He said he would speak with them, and I heard that the next day, the massages were much improved.

Another concern, for me, is the issue of hygiene. When I brought it to Siby’s attention that I thought some of the pancha karma materials may be used on more than one patient, he said it was not true, that it was not possible. It seemed he was not open to feedback of this nature though he did ask one of the therapists about it, who explained it away. The following day, I noticed some changes.

While the table cloth is renewed between patients, the same one remains in the steam box and there isn’t one on the chair patients sit naked on during the head massage. Though commonplace in India, this level of sanitation is difficult to our western sensitivities.

And finally, it would have been helpful if written information was given prior to treatment. What to expect. What is considered normal, possible problems. Though the doctor was always available to answer questions or concerns, daily doctor-patient interaction was missing. For me, it would offered reassurance, an important element when undergoing treatment, especially when it’s a new, rather intensive experience, like pancha karma.

Phase Three ~ Sparks of Life

It sounds luxurious to have a one-hour wash of warm milk continuously poured over the body, but by this point in the treatment, it felt more like work than relaxation. My reserves were hitting bottom, it all felt all-consuming. What kept me energized enough to get myself to the clinic four times daily is in the knowledge that in the end, I’ll emerge rejuvenated. I hope.

The morning milk treatment was followed by an afternoon of two therapies. The first was the same treatment as in the second phase of pancha karma, where hot oil is drizzled into a makeshift well on the body; this time it was on my low back. This was followed by one of the most beneficial of the karma’s, the basti or medicated enema. It is especially indicated in Vata constitution or derangement, since the colon is the main site of Vata. Each day was a bit different in terms of the quantity and formula of the basti. Of all the treatments that were administered, the basti proved to be the most energizing. Afterwards, I felt a few sparks of life returning. What joy!

The final day, after the pancha karma was complete, I was prescribed an ayurvedic herbal concoction to be taken at bedtime. It’s action – to induce therapeutic diarrhea. This insures that the impurities that were loosened during the treatment are swiftly eliminated from the body. My experience did not, thankfully, match what the doctor described I could expect, namely 10-15 movements that may last most of the night. For me it was simple and fairly quick. Most everyone else I’ve spoken with has had the latter experience.

It’s been three days since the treatment ended. Each day I feel a little more energy. To be honest, I think some of this can be attributed to the liberation I feel with being on the other side of it now. I was mostly confined to my room and the clinic for nearly two weeks; now I feel free!

Siby explained that after pancha karma the body is open and in some ways this is when the healing begins. Therefore it is important to maintain a healthy diet (preferably the same one as during the treatment for the first few weeks) and to take care not to do anything to exertion, not to get overheated. This cancels out the few other destinations I considered before returning home next week, since the temperatures in both of those places are well above 100 degrees. Just the 12-hour bus travel from here to Delhi will prove taxing, unless I decide to splurge and fly back. It may be worth it; the trip from here is an arduous one.

I originally started this series of posts on my pancha karma treatment to do a review of Siby’s. I do have some concerns and criticisms which I’ll put in a separate, final post.

Phase Two ~ Pounded, Pummeled with Promises of Rejuvenation

The second round of treatment – the morning session specifically -was a little too stringent for my Vata sensitivities. Massage is one of those pleasures that I look forward to, but this type of massage didn’t feel nourishing like those warm, oily ones that I savor.

Mesh bags filled with herbs soaked in hot oil were pounded and pummeled onto my body, followed by a continual wiping motion with the bags. The first day of the massage was novel and endurable. On the second day the swiping action of the bags on my sensitive Vata skin felt too rough and the pounding action too hard. By the third day I felt raw, the coarseness of the mesh like sandpaper on my skin. Any benefits to be derived must’ve surely been canceled out on that day. I was relieved beyond measure when it was over. It was a tiring experience; I sort of felt like I had been beaten up. The skin and sense of touch are primary in Vata dosha – this massage proved too irritating.

The afternoon sessions were, in contrast, relaxing and simple, two administered at the same time. Oil-soaked gauze was placed onto my forehead; a cotton ball with oil hot was placed, and replaced, in the middle of it. On my third-eye.

The other treatment consisted of pouring warm oil onto my chest which was held in place by a small circular fortress made of flour-dough. When the oil cooled down it was replenished; slowly dripped into the well in a slow, spiral motion.

The diet portion of the treatment is going well. I’ve had little desire to eat anything other than the prescribed food, indicative of my nutritional needs being adequately met. My morning meal – oatmeal with apples and honey – is likely fulfilling my emotional nourishment since it’s a favorite of mine.

The deep sense of fatigue I’ve been feeling makes it hard to imagine that upon the completion of treatment I’ll be fully energized. But this is what I’ve been promised. I excitedly await such time.

Let us see what Phase Three of the treatment brings…

Phase One ~ Oil, Oil Everywhere

I’ve completed the first phase of treatment; three days of abhyanga (oil massage), followed by a steam bath, nasya and shirodhara.

Each treatment began with a vigorous oil scalp followed by whole body massage. In Ayurveda, if whole body massage is not possible, massage to the scalp, as well as the feet, is most important. Which means that we can administer it ourselves. Actually, massage can be self-administered, and is a recommended part of one’s Dinacharya (daily routine) prior to a morning shower.

After my massage medicated drops were inserted into each nostril (nasya). In the afternoon I received shirodhara, a therapy where warm oil is slowly drizzled across the forehead. Relaxing and nourishing to the mind.

The oil remained in my hair until the completion of the abhyanga and shirodhara. Elated to be able to wash it out, it took three rounds of shampoo to remove three days worth of oil slick. I felt reborn. I love the feel of oily massage but do not relish the oil remaining afterwards. It leaves it’s mark everywhere.

I developed a cold the first day, before the treatment began. It may have been from having lowered immunity exacerbated by the three-day semi-fast or it could be cleansing in nature. It’s still hanging on despite my strict adherence to the food they serve, which is basically the same as when doing ghee treatment, with a few more vegetables, and sometimes chapattis (Indian flat bread).

I’ve met a woman who is struggling with the bland repetitive diet. While dining, a group of us make fun of the meal, talking about our favorite forbidden foods while consuming our rice and mung dhal. While I’ve gotten accustomed to it – knowing it’s only short term – I understand her feeling of deprivation. It’s a common reaction that people have when thinking of the foods they’ll have to give up or extremely curb in order to achieve wellness. I made a few substitute suggestions, such as the use of ’stevia’ (produced from a S. American plant) for sweetener, and spoke about ‘antidoting’, a system in Ayurveda that eliminates the need for overly-obsessive diet choices, by finding ways to make a food more doshic-friendly. For example, potatoes are not a grand food choice for Vata, but if eaten on occasion, smothered in ghee, butter, or healthy vegetable oil, and appropriately spiced, the oiliness helps antidote the dryness factor.

My energy waxes and wanes, as per usual these last few weeks. It’s quite normal to have low energy reserves when doing pancha karma; it’s pretty intensive cleansing. I developed a rash (it looks like a heat rash) on my upper chest and back, which crept up my neck and down my upper arms. The massage oil was changed; it eliminated the slight itching that it produced, so it may have been a reaction to the oil. It may also have been an eliminative response by my body.

I met a man who is also receiving pancha karma whose entire body is covered with an angry red rash, some of it raised and oozing. He’s itching miserably. Despite having been given four different ayurvedic medicines, the symptoms remain and worsen after each massage. When he showed me today, he confusedly said that he did not know if he should shower after the massage, or not shower… (it’s recommended to keep it on for the duration of the treatment phase, though I feel it best to shower it off the next morning). I asked him what his sense was and he said he felt fine about the oil. He and the doctors consider his rash a triumphant sign that his body is releasing toxins. But perhaps it’s too quickly, too aggressively. I learned that his treatment time is double that of mine, likely because he is the only male patient at the moment.

The attendants for the female patients, on the other hand, are administering treatments a full day, most of which are quite vigorous in nature. They appear fatigued though won’t admit it when I ask. One of them has been ill, but her work must continue in order to serve the patients. I feel badly for her, and know that their overwork effects the quality of the treatment that I am receiving. Which concerns me. My business mind (I managed a doctor’s practice for several years) thinks of how I would rearrange the schedule to accommodate their needs, which would benefit them and their patients. I’d also implement some quality control with perhaps a bit of consistency, but alas, I am reminded, these things are not easily found in India.

Onto Phase Two…