Since Ayurveda is currently being imported to this country, Andrew
wants to experience the treatment first-hand at the source.We pick
up the glasses of ghee. I intend to chug it down but gag at the first
mouthful. It's thick and viscous, like motor oil. Andrew and Kathy
struggle to force theirs down, and when the doctors leave, Andrew
throws up his arms. "Western and Eastern medicine have parted
company today," he says. "I can just feel the butter clogging
up my arteries." We've been told the ghee will loosen toxins
in the body just as soap loosens dirt on dishes, then wash the toxins
out of our bodies. Andrew says, "That could all be pure fancy."
Ayurveda, a complex system of medicine that arose in India 5000 years
ago, is being offered in modified form at American spas and healing
centers, such as Canyon Ranch in Arizona and Deepak Chopra's center
in La Jolla, California.
Kathy is the only one of us who's tried Ayurveda before. In 1995
she was suffering from chest pains that Western doctors couldn't diagnose.
She met an Ayurvedic doctor who took her to Poona, India for Pancha
Karma, which cured her symptoms and left her in a state of peak health.
She persuades me to come by describing how four therapists will massage
each person at once with special oils. I agree, thinking I'll spend
a week being pampered at a spa and between massages, I'll hike in
the hills and shop for silk. The other factor compelling me is that
for months, I've had painful stomach cramps that doctors have been
unable to cure.
While many Ayurvedic clinics in India are housed in tumble-down buildings
with questionable sanitation, Andrew picks out a luxurious center,
which even has a web site. When I click on Pancha Karma, though, I
find that it consists of five therapies: vomiting, purgatives, enemas,
nasal infusions and blood letting.
Blood letting! Kathy says we won't have blood letting, and any discomfort
will be well worth it. "When I came home last time," she
says, "my skin was shining and my digestion was perfect."
The notion of going to India to become healthy, of course, is an
oxymoron. To prepare for the trip, I have five inoculations recommended
by the Centers for Disease Control: typhoid, hepatitis, influenza,
polio and tetanus. Kathy and I fly to Delhi ahead of Andrew and after
ten days, my throat hurts from inhaling smoke and my eyes burn from
the smog. Andrew and I have contracted colds and are coughing when
we settle into a taxi for what the IVAC brochure describes as "a
convenient two and a half hour drive to Mysore."
It's the taxi ride from hell. We set out at ten p.m. when giant trucks
are on the road, belching smoke and honking their horns. Bumper stickers
on the backs of the trucks say, "Horn, please." Honking
constantly, our driver darts around trucks, cars, wagons pulled by
oxen, mopeds and auto rickshaws-motorized carts with three wheels.
The driver swerves to avoid hitting cows, goats, water buffalo and
camels trotting loose on the road, seemingly with no human in charge.
It's one a.m. when we turn up a gravel road and stop before a large
building with coconut palms silhouetted against the sky. We step out
into silence. A single file of women in saris come walking down the
steps. They pick up our bags and show us into what seems a palace:
a white marble staircase curves around an indoor fountain. Moonlight
streams through the blue glass panes of an atrium, turning the cream-colored
walls shades of lavender and blue. Our rooms have canopy beds, marble
floors, sandalwood closets, ceiling fans and sumptuous bathrooms with
a European toilet and bidet.
Day One
At breakfast we find we're the only guests presently staying at IVAC,
which opened in 1999 and has a staff of fifty. They can accommodate
ten residential guests and a dozen who stay at nearby hotels. While
some come from India, the majority are from Europe, the U.S. and Japan,
where Ayurveda is popular.
After we eat dosas, light pancakes with fresh papaya and yogurt,
we meet the founder of IVAC, Talavane Krishna, M.D. A tall, soft-spoken
man of 52 with a characteristic Indian high-pitched giggle, Dr. Krishna
was an anesthesiologist for 20 years in San Diego and Las Vegas. In
his forties, Dr. Krishna began to develop kidney stones, sciatica
and gastro-intestinal problems. "I took so many Western medicines
and none of them worked," he says. He turned to Ayurvedic remedies
and his health improved. Seeing that Deepak Chopra was beginning to
popularize Ayurveda, Dr. Krishna decided to build a center in Mysore
that would have five-star accommodations and "meet the standards
of discriminating international clients."
He hired cooks to prepare food according to Ayurvedic principles.
He trained young male and female therapists to give massages, and
set up research programs to "validate ayurvedic therapies and
bring Ayurveda into mainstream medicine."
After lunch, Dr. Krishna, who's called "our President"
by his staff, introduces us to N.V. Krishna Murthy, (pronounced Krishna-murty)
an Ayurvedic physician who will supervise our pancha karma. Krishna
Murthy, a thin, simian man who wears a white coat over Western clothes
and black Speedo sandals, interviews us and prescribes purgatives.
He explains the basic principles of Ayurveda: there are three doshas
or body types: vata, pitta and kapha. Each person has a unique blend
of the three doshas and good health reigns when the doshas are in
balance. Later we will learn that Andrew with his large frame and
deep voice is predominantly kapha. Kathy who's small and moves quickly
is vata. With my medium build and gait, I'm pitta.
The chief cause of disease, Krishna Murthy says, is ama, undigested
food particles which lodge in the body as toxins. To rid the body
of ama, we will go through three stages of Pancha Karma: "preparation,
operation and post-operation." For the first three days, we'll
have oil massages and swallow medications designed to bring all toxins
to the stomach. "On the fourth day," he says, "we flush
them out."
He passes out sheets with the rules for Pancha Karma. No exercise
or exposure to sunlight. One must be celibate, speak in low tones,
"confine to the bed" and avoid anger and sorrow "because
they aggravate the doshas."
We're on bed rest and can't leave the palace? Kathy protests that
when she had Pancha Karma before, she was free to come and go as she
wished. Krishna Murthy says we must observe the rules to achieve maximum
results. We confer and decide: since we're here, we'll go with the
program.
At five p.m., a therapist wearing a dusky pink, pajama-like uniform
escorts me into the treatment room. She asks me to remove my clothes
and lie down on a polished wood table. Working in unison, two therapists
rub oil on my limbs until I'm slipping and sliding about. The women,
who have a sweetness about them, were trained for a year before they
were allowed to work on clients. "They're the most important
people in the center," Dr. Krishna says, "because they touch
the guests."
A third women administers shirodara, a treatment in which she drips
warm oil onto a spot in the center of my forehead alleged to be the
third eye, the center of intuition and creativity. I'm apprehensive;
the steady dripping sounds like Chinese water torture but as it begins,
I find myself sinking into deep relaxation. Precision seems critical
in this treatment. If the oil hits half an inch above the targeted
spot, the effect is minimal but when it hits the sweet spot, it sends
currents of sensuous warmth clear down to the toes.
In the evening, Krishna Murthy makes rounds, accompanied by three
interns who've recently graduated from the Ayurvedic College in Mysore.
As Krishna Murthy speaks, the interns wag their heads from side to
side in the Indian form of nodding. Krishna Murthy checks several
pulses in our arms and looks at our tongues. He says mine is coated
with ama. I tell him I have a bad cold. "Tomorrow you will be
fine, madam," he says. I doubt that; the cold feels two or three
days from clearing up. After dinner, one of the interns brings me
a remedy-a spicy brown paste to eat before sleeping.
Day Two
The cold is gone.
We're not allowed to eat any food until the ghee we drank at dawn
is "completely digested." Dr. Krishna insists that ghee
is not harmful to the heart or arteries. "If you take ghee in
the right amount it will lower cholesterol and cure angina."
Andrew is unconvinced. "That flies in the face of accumulated
knowledge of the past century!"
We spend most of the day reading in wicker chairs on the veranda.
Although it's eighty degrees, a female staff member brings us face
coverings that look like ski masks, gloves and socks made of scratchy
wool. I refuse to wear them. "You must keep warm," she says.
Andrew dutifully puts on the ski mask and after two minutes, rips
it off.
We're truculent patients, scrutinizing each procedure, questioning
every rule. We ask Dr. Krishna why we can't take naps during the day.
He says, "If you sleep, the body slows down and ama will build
up." When he walks away, I ask Andrew, "Do you believe that?"
"Do you believe in ama?" Andrew says.
At evening rounds, Krishna Murthy asks, "What was your response
to the ghee?"
"I have stomach pains and I'm bloated," I say.
"You are fine, madam," Krishna Murthy says.
Fine? I'm unable to button my jeans.
"This is perfectly normal."
He launches into an explanation of how ghee penetrates the seven
tissues of the body. It strikes me that Ayurveda is a system of numbers
and interlocking categories. Ask a question and you'll receive a ritual
recitation of numbers of elements that break down into sub-parts.
Health is determined by the five elements which combine into the three
doshas which have ten pairs of qualities and produce seven constitutional
types. One of the ancient sages, Charaka, even defined four types
of lives: creative, destructive, happy or miserable.
DAY THREE
"Our President would like to give you a complimentary treatment,"
the intern says. The treatment, Patrakhizhi, is a two-hour massage
given by six therapists. Krishna Murthy prescribes specific herbs
to balance our doshas. Staff members pick the herbs from the center's
organic garden, clean and fry them in oil, then strain the oil and
tie the herbs up in small pieces of muslin.
In the treatment room, six women take their posts. One pours oil
into a wok-like pan on a burner. A second carries in a tray with the
packets of herbs and sets them in the oil until they're warm. Then
four women take a packet, squeeze the oil onto my skin and pound it
in. They work like a surgical team, pouring oil and pounding until
there's a pool several inches deep on the table and I'm coated like
a salad.
"I've never conceived of so much oil!" Andrew says when
we gather for lunch, which, like all meals at the center, consists
of rice, lentils, vegetables and fruit. I'm still having stomach pains
and consider aborting the treatment, but Kathy says, "You've
come this far, you should see it through."
Andrew reaches in his pocket for the tickets we've purchased on the
express train to Bangalore on Friday. "This is our exit visa,"
Andrew says, waving the packet. "I feel joy just holding it.
I want to be home with my dogs. I want to cook my own food with olive
oil instead of ghee. Oh happy journey-home!"
We dread the visit of Krishna Murthy. The President says Krishna
Murthy is highly respected in Mysore, where he runs a clinic and lectures
at the college, but he doesn't seem to listen to us. He recites his
litany of numbers, types, branches and parts, after which we understand
nothing. He insists we are fine. Kathy tells him she's been unable
to sleep in Mysore. He tells her, "To sleep will be solved today,
sir."
"I hope so," Kathy says, "because it's been a lifelong
problem."
He says she must wash her arms and legs, then sit in bed and breathe
fifty times, silently saying the mantra "so" on the in-breath
and "hum" on the out-breath. "Then tell your body,
please go to sleep."
Kathy and I follow his instructions that night, washing our limbs,
breathing fifty times and asking the body to sleep. Then we turn off
the lamp and lie awake most of the night.
DAY FOUR
My birthday. Every member of the staff comes up to give me flowers
and say, "Many happy returns." After my massage, the young
women vie to be the one who will bathe me and wash my hair on my birthday.
The center has asked Andrew to give a press conference for Mysore
reporters on the state of American medicine. Despite his reservations
about our treatment, Andrew gives a warm-spirited talk. One reporter
asks why he's in Mysore. "To learn about Ayurveda," Andrew
says, adding that he thinks Western medicine is "collapsing because
it's too expensive and too dependent on technology. It works well
with acute illness but it's not very good at treating chronic conditions,
such as asthma and irritable bowel syndrome. Traditional medicines
such as Ayurveda are often more effective."
That night, Krishna Murthy prepares us for our "operation."
He says he'll give us medicine in the morning so "all ama and
toxins will arrive in the g.i. tract and be flushed out. There is
no need to scare. Nothing will go wrong. You should speak to your
stomach and mind so that only waste products are going out. No body
parts."
DAY FIVE
The interns bring us cups of black paste, and I'll spare you the
details of what happens after we force down the paste. We spend most
of our time on the veranda, playing cards to distract ourselves.
At mid-day, Krishna Murthy appears with the three interns following
like ducklings. He asks Andrew, "You see what a gentle procedure
this is?"
"Yes," Andrew says.
I glare at Andrew. I'm bloated so badly I look seven months pregnant.
Krishna Murthy says I'm fine.
Kathy, who has intermittent hypertension, says she's concerned about
her blood pressure. "My head feels light." He takes her
blood pressure and although it's elevated, he says there is nothing
to worry about. "When toxins go out of the body, people experience
different things."
By six that night, Kathy's lying on her bed looking ashen. When Krishna
Murthy arrives, she says, "I want you to listen to me. I know
what it feels like when my blood pressure is too high. Something in
that preparation you gave us wasn't good for me."
"Don't worry, Madam. Whatever may happen, we are ready to face
it."
Kathy narrows her eyes. "I don't want any more ghee."
"And I don't want any more ghee!" I say.
"I don't want any salt in my food either," Kathy says.
Krishna Murthy folds his arms. "But madam, without salt, your
food will not be tasty."
"I don't care if it's not tasty! Salt is bad for my blood pressure."
"Please," he says. "My sincere request is that you
cooperate with the purification therapy. If you just relax, tomorrow
your blood pressure will be normal."
When he leaves, Kathy tells us she's frightened she may have a stroke.
Andrew says he'll monitor her but doesn't believe that will happen.
"Once the substance leaves your system, you'll be okay."
That night, Dr. Krishna, "our President," brings in a troupe
of Indian musicians to play ragas "that will pacify the doshas."
I can't say what happens to the doshas but the music pacifies us and
we actually sleep.
Day Six
When I wake up, my stomach is flat and I'm free of pain--a state
which, to my surprise, has continued to this day. Kathy's blood pressure
is normal. We ask Andrew how he feels. "Great," he jokes,
"but I felt great before I flew here." We all look many
years younger than when we arrived. Krishna Murthy takes our pulse
and announces: "All three doshas are in balance. We are releasing
you tomorrow."
We spend the rest of the day shopping and exploring the Mysore Palace,
which we find riotously colorful and more inspiring than the Taj Mahal.
That night, "Our President" has his personal cook prepare
a banquet for us: dozens of dishes served on a banana leaf enhanced
by elegant table ware of silver and crystal. Then we watch "Ghandi"
on his large-screen t.v.
DAY SEVEN
The entire staff gathers on the veranda to say goodbye. Tropical
birds are calling in the mango trees and a warm wind rustles the leaves.
The female therapists in their pink uniforms encircle Kathy and me,
placing wreaths of fragrant tulsi leaves around our necks.
In the taxi, Kathy asks Andrew how he'd evaluate Pancha Karma. "I
feel renewed," he says, "but it's hard to separate the effects
of the treatment from the whole experience of being in India, especially
being taken care of and forced to relax for a week." He adds,
"I like the idea of detoxifying and giving the body a rest."
"Would you do it again?" she asks. The Ayurvedic doctors
suggest a cleanse once a year.
"Yes," he says.
"No," I think. Then I remember my last treatment: a massage
with herbs and warm water, given simultaneously with shirodara. The
procedure took me to the brink of sensory overload: warm oil dripping
on the forehead while eight small, supple hands rubbed scented water
on my limbs. My skin had become so sensitive from the treatments that
the tingling pleasure of the dripping oil was almost unbearable. When
it ended, I felt dizzy and intoxicated. The therapist smiled as she
helped me sit up. "People say it's like going to heaven and they
don't want to come back," she said. "But we must."
For more information on Dr. Andrew Weil, log on to www.drweil.com
For more information on Pancha Karma and the IVAC Center, log on to
www.ayurindus.com.
