Fasting, feasting
The Hindu
Going without food for a few days felt empowering and helped understand how saints survive in caves without eating for days
Unlike polar bears which need to eat as much as they can during summer and conserve energy all winter but sadly are starving now due to climate change, I indulge all year. In December, when my husband suggested we check into a detox clinic before we start 2022 full of regrets, I agreed.
My faith in him decided my fate. The nature-cure centre is set in a beautiful town in Kerala. The drive out from Bengaluru is a pretty one past coffee and rubber estates. The actual centre is a no-frill building on a quiet rocky outcrop. More shrubs than trees dot the landscape. Hilly ghats frame the horizon, the isolation is ideal.
I was eager for ayurvedic massages while dreading kashayams. The chief doctor diagnosed us by pressing points on the back of my palm with a pen-like instrument. He requested me to tell him only when it truly hurt. My threshold for pain is low or there are a lot of things wrong with my body because I heard my yelps bounce off the glass walls. My husband went through the grind in a more mellow fashion. We discovered the treatment is not Ayurveda but naturopathy. There would be no kashayams and fasting is the treatment.