{"id":1691,"date":"2015-11-29T17:42:09","date_gmt":"2015-11-29T17:42:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fictioninternational.sdsu.edu\/wordpress\/?p=1691"},"modified":"2015-11-29T17:42:09","modified_gmt":"2015-11-29T17:42:09","slug":"harold-jaffes-dispatches-from-india-november-29-2015","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fictioninternational.sdsu.edu\/wordpress\/harold-jaffes-dispatches-from-india-november-29-2015\/","title":{"rendered":"Harold Jaffe’s Dispatches from India<\/em> – November 29, 2015"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ayurveda (MRI)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Back and upper legs aching after a month in sacred Kashi.
\nMemo<\/strong>: Do the American thing: some kind of exercise every day.<\/p>\n

The small gym, called Bob\u2019s, is two stories above a mobile phone
\nshop and a mysterious venue called Aryan Academy.
\nA dozen helter-skelter machines, scattered dumbbells, two tread-
\nmills, one with unopened cartons stored on it, fierce air conditioning,
\ntoo-loud Hindu hip-hop music, and about as many trainers as
\nclients, including Bob, a large man for an Indian, steroidal, with a
\nlarge tattoo of Lord Shiva on his right tricep.
\nBob\u2019s not going to work.<\/p>\n

The nearest yoga studio via tuk-tuk is seven and-a-half kilometers of
\nmaddening traffic and pollution from my lodging house.
\nI pencil in yoga studio as a last option.
\nBrisk walking exercise through the narrow, littered streets murders
\nthe lungs, while dodging traffic and sidestepping cows, dogs,
\ndonkeys, goats . . . distresses the heart.
\nStretching and crunches on the floor in my room helps but isn\u2019t
\nnearly enough.<\/p>\n

Another lodging house guest, from Bulgaria oddly, suggests
\nAyurvedic massage.
\nAyurveda is an ancient holistic medical practice and Kashi is one of
\nthe foremost Ayurvedic centers in India.
\nInvestigation yields several studios in Kashi, one, Sri Ganesh Spa,
\nfairly close by.
\nThe charge for an hour of Ayurvedic massage is 750 rupees, about
\n11 US dollars.
\nI phone for an appointment asap, engage my usual tuk-tuk wallah,
\nan older man but a desperado in traffic as you must be in Kashi.<\/p>\n

Sri Ganesh Spa occupies the second floor of an anonymous,
\ntypically crumbing structure not far from Assi Ghat.
\nThe first floor is given over to KK Kapoor\u2019s House of Fancy Light.
\nI climb upstairs to the cramped waiting room, dimly lit, large silk on
\nthe wall containing a devotional image of Sri Ganesh, Lord Shiva\u2019s
\nelephant-headed son, remover (but also creator) of obstacles.
\nThe 30-ish Indian man behind the small desk in white tank top and
\nwhite trousers talking on the mobile motions me to sit.
\nAyurvedic herbs are showcased in a small dusty cabinet above the
\ndesk.<\/p>\n

I hear a woman\u2019s voice speaking with authority in Hindi from the
\nnext cubicle and assume she is a masseuse.
\nI\u2019d prefer a masseuse, but this is India.
\nA male client will have a masseur and a female client will have a
\nmasseuse.
\nTransgender client? You will have to consult Sri Ganesh.<\/p>\n

The man puts down the mobile and motions me to follow him.
\nI remove my shoes in the small vestibule then move into the
\ncramped massage space containing two narrow tables side-by-side.
\nI undress, put on a kind of loin cloth, then lie down on my tummy
\nand close my eyes.
\nA sitar is playing a delicate raga, softly, as if just for me.<\/p>\n

He begins with my feet addressing the pressure points forcefully in
\nthe Chinese fashion. I imagine a Siamese cat who sees me from a
\ndistance and darts toward me joyfully, but it is a baby macaque
\nmonkey that jumps into my arms and licks my face, and I hear the
\nplaintive single note shriek of a scavenging homeless dog side-
\nswiped by a tuk-tuk, the driver does not look back.<\/p>\n

Now the masseur is working on my calves and lower thighs, using
\nan oil that smells of cardamon, exerting a lot of pressure on my
\nlegs, and a slim Muslim girl in fashionably faded jeans with a burqa-
\ntype veil covering her face is piloting a motor scooter in crazy traffic,
\ntalking and grinning into her smartphone through her mask. Wearing
\nthe explosives taped to her body she boards the crowded bus in
\nJerusalem and the ensuing detonation is a dirge on an oud
\nwhich resembles a lute. I hear the plaintive single note shriek of a
\nhomeless dog sideswiped by a tuk-tuk, the driver not looking back.<\/p>\n

The masseur loosens the loin cloth and kneads my buttocks and
\nlower back. He adds pressure by putting one knee on the massage
\ntable. A clutch of Dalits, untouchables, very dark, barefoot, with rags
\naround their heads, are walking north to south, from Tulsi to Assi
\nGhat shouting into their mobiles. They live in an impoverished
\nhamlet without electricity so they have to travel seven kilometers to
\na village with electricity to charge their mobiles.<\/p>\n

It is now the tabla\u2019s turn; the percussive rhythm intricate but clean,
\neasy to parse, soft, becoming softer, I hear the plaintive single note
\nshriek of a homeless dog sideswiped by a tuk-tuk, the driver
\nnot looking back.<\/p>\n

The masseur has both knees on the massage table as he kneads
\nmy troublesome back, sacral to lumbar. Providentially the sitar and
\ntabla are playing together, in and out of each other, softly. I feel the
\nhard therapeutic kneading and am almost asleep, when he inquires
\nin English: \u201cOkay?\u201d, meaning \u201cIs the pressure tolerable?\u201d \u201cYes,\u201d I
\nwhisper. The boys and men who stack the wood, bind the bier,
\nstraighten the burning corpse with long bamboo poles, sometimes
\nhaving to puncture the dead body, are Dalits and they look the
\nsame–black, thin as reeds, rags on their heads, barefoot or in filthy
\nflip-flops. Dogs, cows, pigeons poke at the charred rope and burnt
\nwood with bits of corpse on it. Black vultures and Siberian gulls
\ncircle overhead at different velocities, gulls darting and screaming,
\nvultures higher, circling slowly, silently. If they descend too close to
\nthe bier the gulls gang up on them.<\/p>\n

He is working on my shoulders and neck, then moving to my head,
\nand the leopards are killing more Indians in the northern jungles
\nthan before. Officials want to cull the leopards. It turns out that the
\ntimes the Dalits go into the deep woods to evacuate corresponds
\nwith the times the leopard hunts, namely early morning and dusk. A
\nDalit teenage girl was in the woods at dusk when she heard a big
\ncat growl; happily she had her smart phone with her and phoned her
\nfather who along with other Dalits charged into the woods with big
\nsticks. The leopard vanished. The question is will the Dalits teach
\nthemselves to evacuate at different hours to avoid the leopards or
\nwill they lobby to get toilets in their shanties?<\/p>\n

Now I am turned around, and he is earnestly at my toes. Hard to
\ndistinguish this \u201cAyurvedic\u201d massage from pressured hybridized
\nmassages I\u2019ve gotten elsewhere. The sitar and tabla have given way
\nto popular Bollywood music, as if elegance belongs to my back and
\nbanality to my front. Except for the Dalits, virtually every middle-
\naged or older Indian male has a protruding belly. The Dalits are skin
\nand bone like the cows, goats, like the brown bedraggled mutt that
\nhad the dignity to emit that plaintive single note shriek in protest as it
\nwas sideswiped by a tuk-tuk, the driver not looking back.<\/p>\n

As I am leaving the studio the masseur points to what he calls a
\nsteam room\u2014a structure that resembles an MRI tube where your
\nbody is doused with Ayurvedic herb-infused steam.
\nI say maybe next time, thank him, tip him, leave.
\nThat night my back actually feels worse, but the next night it feels
\nsomewhat better.<\/p>\n

On the way back to the rooming house from the massage studio, I
\ntell the tuk-tuk wallah to be careful about hitting animals (though it
\nwas another tuk-tuk wallah who side-swiped the dog).
\nHe looks back at me uncomprehendingly.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/jaffeantijaffe.sdsu.edu\/<\/a>
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\nhttp:\/\/haroldjaffe.wordpress.com\/<\/a>
\nhttp:\/\/fictioninternational.sdsu.edu\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ayurveda (MRI) Back and upper legs aching after a month in sacred Kashi. Memo: Do the American thing: some kind of exercise every day. The small gym, called Bob\u2019s, is two stories above a mobile phone shop and a mysterious venue called Aryan Academy. A dozen helter-skelter machines, scattered dumbbells, two tread- mills, one with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1691","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fictioninternational.sdsu.edu\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fictioninternational.sdsu.edu\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fictioninternational.sdsu.edu\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fictioninternational.sdsu.edu\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fictioninternational.sdsu.edu\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1691"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/fictioninternational.sdsu.edu\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1691\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1692,"href":"https:\/\/fictioninternational.sdsu.edu\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1691\/revisions\/1692"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fictioninternational.sdsu.edu\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fictioninternational.sdsu.edu\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fictioninternational.sdsu.edu\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}