Can you specify, without checking, if your neck is stocky, lanky or average? I couldn’t.
There we sat, a group of strangers thrown together in an airy, naturally-lit room, with a view of the hills at every window: checking our ears, squinting at our elbows, measuring our foreheads. We were at Hilton Shillim, a short drive uphill from Lonavala, laying the groundwork for our detoxification programme.
As the questions drew us in, the group soon lost its attitude of mirth, each of us withdrawing into a shell of quizzical retrospection. Had I been skinny as a child, or chubby, or had my weight always oscillated? What did I enjoy eating then, and what repulsed me: what were my natural tastes? How different am I — in the bare bones matters — from what I was at 5, or at 15? How steady was this change, how positive?
I turned the leaf to fill out the rest of my form, and the questions turned physiological. I found myself measuring my propensity towards anxiety, apathy, empathy and work stress. Do I lose sleep in times of stress, or give myself up to it entirely? In other words (or so I gleaned) do I buckle under pressure, or buckle up, or just choose to walk away? Or does my sleep pattern stay unencumbered no matter what I go through? There were also questions about blood pressure, headaches and sugar levels: these, by themselves, were pretty cut-and-dry, but when paired with the more intuitive queries, they did plenty to change the way I looked at this well-oiled machine that houses me, that is more than just skin and sinew.
Once we had filled the forms, we were taken to the Ayurvedic physician and his team. They went through our replies, checked our height, weight and basal metabolic rate, and then whipped out an intriguing, hand-held ‘scanner’ from a drawer. The Oligoscan, when traced over the palm of your hand, calculates the levels of various minerals in the body (it can detect toxicity if there’s a mineral overload, for instance). All of these tests came together to give us our dosha .
What’s a dosha , you ask? “The five elements present in the world are called the panchamahabhuta ; these are also present in the body. One of the ways to analyse them is through body structure, or body type,” explains Dr Arun Pillai, the Ayurvedic physician in his trademark, calm tone. “This is how you know whether you are a vata (wind), pitta (fire) or kapha (either water or the earth element), based on certain characteristics.”
Soon enough — time flies when you’re massaged with potlis of warm tea and scented scrubs — I was informed that I am a vata , and perplexed the good physician by bursting into laughter. My only association with the term ‘wind’ — for the past five years, at least — was getting too winded to breathe while trudging up two flights of stairs.
So they had to sit me down and explain the difference between prakriti — my natural form, and vikriti — the form I had deviated to. With the right kind of diet and exercise, I was told, my body would lapse back to my natural shape: not skinny or curvy, but just the body type I naturally tended towards.
The instructions — nay, broad guidelines — were simple: food preferably fresh from the oven, indulgence in spicy over sweet, avoidance of cold treats. I was told I revel in warm weather not cold, that my protein and calcium levels were excellent, but there were some grains that I needed to focus on. All achievable goals, and their chefs showed us how.
The evening cook-off was a demonstration of Ayurvedic cooking: rasam replacing soup, steamed chicken and roasted veggies replacing everything fried, natural sweeteners like honey and jaggery dominating desserts. Each meal comprised tiny portions of multiple offerings instead of a heavy dose of one particular food. Breakfasts were a choice of nuts, yoghurt, eggs, ragi dosa and juice fragrant with herbs; a bit of tea or juice satisfied between-cravings. Not easy, but definitely going to have their impact. Now hopefully, I can do this when I’m not just star-gazing and getting massages.
The writer was in Lonavala at the invitation of the Hilton Shillim, for their ‘24 experiences in 24 hours’.
