Ayurdays III

KIZHI
[This is a part of Ayurdays, a work I did in 1996. I blog it now, because I am undergoing a similar treatment]

Today my treatment took a new turn. Kizhi is the new course. Kizhi means a small bundle. In this a small bundle of shredded leaves, sliced lemons, powdered grains or some such things is heated in oil and the patient is given a massage with it. The one prescribed for me is called navarakkizhi. Navara is a type of paddy with medicinal qualities. Its rice is cooked in medicated milk and bundled in 4 kizhies. They are dipped in boiling milk added with coctions and used in the massage. It is mostly a rejuvenating treatment.

By five in the evening, good old Raman Nair took me to the treatment room. The tub was kept ready with his two assistants waiting in position. I was made to change into the loincloth and the three together hoisted me to the tub. Oil was smeared on my head. Medicated ghee was melted and applied all over my body. Next a man brought the fuming kizhies in a tray and the two assistants started the massage. In a minute the bundles became cool and other two kizhies were brought from the boiling milk.

The rice in the bundles was reduced by one hour and the kizhies became very small. Thick deposits of the rice paste were formed all over my body and the tub. I was made to sit up and the helpers started to remove the paste with coconut leaves cut into small pieces. There after body was wiped with a towel and a fresh coat of oil was applied.

Water, separately boiled for head and the body were kept to cool in the adjacent bathroom. I was led in. Raman Nair wiped away the oil from my head and body. A few mugs of water were splashed and a green herbal paste was smeared all over. With a bath in the medicated water, the day’s treatment was over.

From you, my Lord, the sky was formed. From the sky, the air. From air emerged the fire. From fire came water. From water the land. And in the land grow the herbs. Herbs produce food. Food makes man. So man is the essence of food. Some of it in me had rot. It had to be replaced. So the essence of bala, best of herbs is added with the essence of animals, the milk and best of food, the rice. Drop by drop the thick liquid entered my body. The thin walls of capillaries received it into the blood bypassing the mouth and stomach. It spread to the different parts of the body thus energizing the whole system.

Bala grows on slopes of Western Ghats. As the topsoil gets soaked during the rains and the nutrients of earth are dissolved in water, their powerful roots absorb the most of it. Millions of moth looking leaves sprout, colouring the hillsides in viridian. Between the summer rains, the sun shines in full beam filling the sky with energy. The leaves absorb the most of it, making saps which fill their roots and stems. The tribals collect them. Agents buy them. The medicine factory extracts their strength. The treatment team pumps it into my body.

But paddy being seasonal, the shoots will perish in a few months. The plants pack all that they can in the long hard grains. The farmers collected them. The agents buy them. The hospital extracts their strength and pumps it into my body.

Cows give milk. Generations after generations they have been producing much more milk than their little ones need. Through the times the human civilization got indebted to them for the plain white liquid, which tastes like the mothers milk. The cowherds collected it. The agents buy it. The hospital medicates and pumps it into my body.

From food did all these living forms emerge. By food they live. And to food, my Lord, they return. They become food. Food forms the basis of existence. Food is the basic bond among the living. And through the complex food web, I am bound to the living world. All my parts are. Yet my joints, contaminated and worn out resist the eternal flow of food. That is death. Before the death slowly gains a disastrous control over me, the great physician decided to reinforce the flow. For this he got the essence of all foods, the herbal juice, paddy grains and animal milk, cooked all together and fed me through the little pores of my body. I got up from the tub with added strength.