Our Blue Green Orb

Living on this blue green orb of remarkable resources, it is painful to see how unevenly they are often distributed.

Today I massaged a woman introduced as, “Elderly, she nearly died in the summer.”

I could wrap my hand and then some around her ankle. Her legs were less meaty than my arms, and she was in pain. Before going to the hospital, where she spent the month of August, her children thought perhaps she had just lived out her life and they should let her die. She weighs, maybe, 65 pounds.

She is 46 years old.

I am in southern India, the city of Bangalore, this nation’s rapidly growing Silicon Valley. Apartment buildings are rising out of the orange dust on every road, and renting as fast as the final whitewash is applied. The city’s old timers complain about the young, rich techies; how they “don’t give, only take.” How old is this story?

My client, who I will call Nana, is sore in all her joints. My friend Sujata interprets, telling me Nana was hospitalized because she couldn’t walk. Until she retired, she had carried bricks and cement on her head at building sites. She was widowed at 30, and raised two sons. My hand is a little longer than her foot. She has come into the city for a few days, to celebrate a grandson’s second birthday.

I ask whether she goes to bed hungry, self consciously aware of my giant American body. It is quite possible Nana and I spend the same amount of time thinking of food….me trying to avoid it, she hoping for a daily plateful.

At first, she refuses the massage, saying she isn’t worthy. Sujata is persuasive, and I begin systematically to work on Nana’s knees, calves, feet and hands, applying Deep Heat cream. Nana begins to relax and watches my hands. I send Reiki energy into her frail body, which I could draw as a stick figure. I suspect she has arthritis, but she doesn’t know what is wrong; they didn’t tell her at the hospital. As much of her body as she will offer, I massage. I smile and try to catch her eye, but she will have none of that.

I finish. “Does she need to leave?” I ask Sujata, who discovers that Nana has eased into the moment. She wants to sit with me for a while. I am thrilled. “I think this is what real prayer is supposed to be like,” Sujata says. “I bet no one has ever touched her like this.” I am struggling with tears; I don’t need to confuse the situation.

We spend some time together doing Armchair Yoga; she is too weak to stand. I demonstrate asanas and mudras she faithfully mimics. I silently thank Swami Sivananda, for sending his disciple Swami Vishnudevananda to North American in the 1950s to “propagate yoga.” Here I am, returning the favor, bringing yoga full circle back to Mother India. Nana wears a shy smile.

She planned to return to her village tomorrow, but instead agrees to a second massage at 8:30 a.m. with medicated oils, and tells Sujata she thinks she will stay a few more days now. We both are excited about our morning meeting.

After dark, Nana’s son Naveen, our gardener, knocks on my door. He gestures to his one room hut on the grounds, communicating he wants me to come over. This is my second winter here, and I’ve never been invited to his home. I throw on a shawl to thwart the mosquitoes and we head out.

At the house, the birthday party is getting started. About 12 of us pack into a room the size of an airport shuttle bus. Grandbaby Nagesh is ready to blow out his candles. He is two today, and wearing tennis shoes and clothes a Vermont friend donated. Cousins and other kin swarm around the multicolored cake.

“Let me get my camera!” I announce, and head back to my room. Naveen quickly hands me a tray, loaded with fruit and sweets and decorative leaves. I, the overfed American, am receiving a gift at his son’s birthday party, from a man who has two shirts and one pair of pants.

I grab my camera, a pack of 12 pastel plastic combs, buttons with pictures of tigers on them, a few whistles and a small calculator with an attached pen. Thanks to friends in Vermont, Michigan and Maryland, I have bounty to share. Chris and Nancy and Pat and Linda and Kay and Rog filled a suitcase, and gave me money to use when opportunities arise.

Back at the house, Naveen and his wife Narini insist I sit in the only seat, a broken folding chair. I prefer the floor but they prevail. Nana is on the floor across from me, and we briefly catch each other’s eye and smile. My digital camera affords everyone a chance for instant celebrity…such fun to see the captured moment, one moment later. I hand out the small gifts, looking for Narini’s younger sister.

Thirteen years old, she went on a hunger strike last June when her father said she had to quit school and earn money for the family. A strong willed girl, she won the battle this time, and is still in school. “Where is the student?” I ask, pointing at her. I hand her the calculator, in a black and silver case. “For your studies,” I tell her, looking into her wide and sparkling eyes.

Narini’s other sister, Nagu, is not at the party. Seventeen, she is back at the village with her husband and new baby. She called today and said she was coming for a visit later this month. I learned she is feeling good and nursing her six month old daughter. I told her I had lots of beautiful baby clothes with me. When Sujata spoke with her, Nagu said she had been dreaming of us.

Now, in my upstairs bedroom, I write to make sense of it all. Outside, joining the sounds of traffic, planes, hammering, electric saws, dogs and cowbells, I hear little boys blowing whistles. Maybe I will dream of them tonight.

Bethany Knight
Bangalore, India
December 11, 2007

Addendum:
I learned her name is Gangama, after India’s most holy and famous Ganges River.

For 50 minutes, she experienced medicated sesame oil rubbed into her limbs, hands and feet. I applied coconut oil to her neck and face.

Afterwards, I took a trip to the apothecary and got her a three months supply of cod liver oil (the best anti-inflammatory there is, according to my husband, Dr. Thurmond Knight) more tubes of pain relieving gel and jars of Hoorlick’s. Hoorlick’s is a popular malt powder milk supplement taken to build up one’s strength and stamina.

Suja saw Gangama later and said, “Bethany, she looks so much better! She is smiling and looking at people. Her face looks better.”

Music to a masseuse’s ears, proof of the healing power of touch. I thank God and my teacher, Dr. Nedungadi V. Haridas of Chennai, for the opportunity to serve with my hands.