This story was originally published on our family blog, Monster Potion, on January 15, 2013, while we were traveling through India for three months. It’s lightly edited, with images added — there were no photos taken at the scene, for reasons that’ll become obvious. For better and worse, my 2013 voice is retained throughout.
I just had my half of the His & Hers Ayurvedic full-body massages here at the lodge near Ranthambore National Park. Ok, it wasn’t exactly billed that way — that’s probably an American marketing convention — but that’s pretty much what it was.
Seemingly Necessary Disclaimers
Before I tell you about it, a wood-shop teacher’s handful of disclaimers, compressed into one: I enjoyed the massage, I’m comfortable with my sexuality, I have real respect for these practitioners and their craft — and I’m aware that, as with “I’m not racist, but…,” a certain amount of truth hides inside a disclaimer, which is a thread for another day.
Now that those are out of the way, and with full acknowledgement that I mock that which I do not fully understand, let me tell you about this massage experience…
No Tigers, One Wrecked Back
The whole thing started this morning when we returned to the lodge after our second day in a row from a tiger safari where, incidentally, we saw no tigers. No problem, though — we had been forewarned and had a great time anyway. I talked about this in a post yesterday.
The safari was fun, though today we sat in the open-air jeep’s last row, which meant the ride was extra bumpy from the get go. Then, once we got into the Ranthambore National Park, we took a road clearly less traveled because it was barely navigable. In fact, calling it a road is generous.
What I’m getting to is that our backs got completely jacked. My chiropractor, Dr. Rabbetz, definitely would not have signed off on this excursion any more than he signed off on me playing ultimate frisbee in San Francisco a few years ago and, after an hour-long pickup game, I couldn’t walk for two weeks.
Twenty-Nine Dollars, Delivered to the Tent
So, at 10:30 AM this morning, when we get back to our lodge, I comment to my wife that I desperately need a massage. After 10+ years together, she knows how to skillfully deflect my poorly-veiled hints, this time pointing to poster about Ayurvedic massages as we’re walking through the lobby. Mmmm, interesting. But should we really spend the money? We’re really trying to shift into a more budget-minded way of traveling.
‘1600 Rupees for sixty-minute full-body Ayurvedic massage,’ says the man at the desk. ‘They come to your tent.’
$29 USD for an hour!
The only aspect of the whole bit I don’t have a great handle on is the ‘Ayurvedic’ part. Besides, we came to India to experience whatever it offers us.
Sign us up: Mrs. Robyn at 5:00, Mr. Chad at 6:30.
Done.
Robyn Goes First
The day passes and, at 4:55, a woman and man come walking toward our tent as I vacate with the kids so Robyn can get ayuvedarized in peace. The woman is dressed fabulously, with a shiny gold nose piercing and a bright blue sari, carrying herself in a way that screams Healer. (I’m not sure ‘scream’ and ‘healer’ go together but you get the point.) The gentleman accompanying her, from a few paces behind is dressed more formally. If I recall correctly, he’s wearing khakis and a white shirt. Very nice looking, though I can’t tell what his role is. Body guard? Unlikely. Translator? Maybe.
‘Doesn’t matter,’ I say to myself. ‘We’re each getting rubbed. For 60 minutes. And inexpensively!
When Robyn comes out of the tent at 6:15, I excitedly ask her how it was, expecting an expression of bliss that conveys both how much she loved hers and how much I’m going to love mine. That Ayurvedic massage is going to open up new doorways to heaven-on-earth for us.
Instead, Robyn says, somewhat tepidly, ‘It was good. But it’s not the massage you’re expecting. They rub your skin like silly putty.’
Not exactly the response I was seeking, but tell me more.
Giggling a bit, she makes a wax-on-wax-off motion, telling me it was strange when the woman massaged her breasts. Then she drops the real news: the man and woman are a husband and wife team, and I’m getting massaged by the man.
‘Well,’ I say, ‘that’s going to make the happy ending a little more awkward.’
She rolls her eyes.
No Sheet, No Draping, Just Me
Okay fine. I’ve had massages from men before and, although I prefer a woman’s touch, massages from men do have their advantages.
So I’m hanging out in the tent waiting for my turn when the nicely dressed Indian man comes to our tent’s open flap. I watch him laying his gear out on the bed, which includes some kind of synthetic tarp-like sheet. It looks super uncomfortable and I assume, obviously incorrectly, that he’s going to lay a comfortable cotton sheet over it. Nope. He just asks me, politely of course, to remove my clothes and face up. And I do.
Now here I am, lying on a cold plastic sheet, with my package just out there. No top sheet. No ‘draping,’ as I learned they call it in the one massage class I took before dropping out of the certification program back in ‘05.
It’s very cold in the room.
I haven’t man-scaped in months.
This is awkward.
But hey, I’m in India!
The first thing this nicely-dressed man does is pour warm oil onto his hands. Normal. He vigorously wiggles my stomach, which doesn’t feel that great due to the crazy amount of spicy Indian food we’ve been eating since we arrived last week. He’s taking a risk here too so I go with it. Then, he draws circles (and circles and circles) around my nipples and belly button with his oily fingers. Less normal.
As I lay there face up and buck-naked, I can’t help but wonder just a little bit how close he’s going to get to Mr. Johnson and the boys. Then, a few minutes later, a more alarming thought enters my mind: What happens when I turn onto my stomach when he goes to work on my backside? Of course, I’m really not that concerned and yet it’s funny to wonder where this is going. Semi-haha-funny, that is.
Fortunately, I guess, work on my front side only goes as far as him grazing the boys when he’s massaging my thighs. Plenty far, and really no biggie. Figuratively and literally.
‘Turn over, sir, please.’
Okey dokey.
I go to roll over — a move I find awkward during even the most normal of massages — and plant my face on the plastic tarp. The material doesn’t have any give so I turn my head to the left and rest my ear flat. The problem is, the material is such that my right ear is now suctioned to the tarp. Very uncomfortable, and yet I can’t come up with a better position.
Fine, I can live with the ear-suction, so long as I don’t have to get up too quickly. I don’t want any inner-ear damage from this experiment.
Soon after I assume this position, he begins kneading my skin, eventually running his finger tips up and down the length of my body. Almost a caress. Admittedly, it feels pretty good. This nicely-dressed man has a nice touch.
But two things happen that cause some dis-ease while I’m face down with my right ear stuck to this tarp thingy such that I can only hear out of my left.
First, a wild squirrel starts scrambling around on our canvas tent’s roof. Squirrels have been doing this the past couple days and, I’ve been told, at least one of them has even come into our tent. So that’s not ideal, for what I trust are obvious reasons.
Second, I feel part of his body, presumably his knee, depress the bed between my thighs. Not a true concern, but I’m lying there thinking the material for this post just keeps getting better and better. Forget if I’m actually enjoying the experience or not — this is hilarious.
He finishes off my backside with a few more tickle-like caresses, so to speak, and now it’s time for me to sit up so he can massage my head.
The Part I Was Looking Forward To
I do as I’m told and sit there Native American-style, still totally naked. Work on my head and shoulders is the part I’m looking forward to most because, like most people who spend an inordinate amount of time hunched over a computer, I tend to carry 99% of my stress in this region. And before I know it, he’s busting the moves on my head and neck. Great!
I don’t even remember his first technique, exactly, but I do know that, for some reason, it conjures an image of Yogi Bear. Repeatedly. I have many theories but none of them seem plausible. So, amidst hearing a refrain of ‘Hey Boo Boo’ I do my best to push Yogi out, with very little success.
Next comes a motion where he thwacks my head with his fingers in a way that, ensconced in the darkness of my closed eyelids, I begin to see what I can only describe as fireworks. Not romantic fireworks — more like those light tracers you get when staring into your eye lids that make strange shapes, just in the form of fireworks. This maneuver of his one hurt a little so I distracted myself by reflecting on the Katy Perry song, which Bowie loves. She and I were just listening to it yesterday so that was a nice place to go while he did whatever he was doing to my noggin. At this point, it’s clear to me how in the moment I am. I’m having a good time though.
The last technique he introduces to my head is rubbing my scalp pretty much as hard as he can, with both hands pushing from the temples upward. Again, it feels good, and yet it also reminds me of the time Robyn and I went to that crazy new age workshop in Houston where they put pillow cases on our heads, rubbed them with industrial-grade car buffers, and had us hyperventilate — all in the name of reaching a higher level of consciousness. Yes, we paid money for this.
Anyway, this is what the technique feels like. And as I think of that head-buffing workshop, which is how we now reference it in the lore of our colorful relationship over the years, it jogs my memory of the woman Robyn and I met at that workshop.
All I remember is sitting on the floor of that warehouse, talking to a woman who, as her (presumably unpaid) profession, performs mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on squirrels. (I swear I’m not making this shit up.) So with the squirrel racing around on the roof above our tent, it’s all a little much.
From there, the nicely-dressed man alternates between these three techniques, along with another that I cannot for my life figure out how to describe, until he somewhat abruptly stops and announces: ‘Finished.’
Trapped on the Table, Fully Oiled
Aside from all the nonsense going on in my head for the past 60+ minutes, it’s a great massage. I don’t really know what to do, though, because I’m sitting on the bed totally naked, oiled up like nobody’s business, and I need to wait for the nicely-dressed man to roll up his tarp and go on his merry way.
I think to myself: Shower! I’ll tell him I’m going to take a shower! That way we can say our goodbyes here.
So that’s what I propose.
‘Wait ten minutes,’ he tells me.
Oh come on, man, what do I do now?
‘Okay,’ I say.
To buy time, I clumsily slide my oily body back into my black Calvin Klein boxer-briefs, then my dark green REI shorts, and sit down on the edge of the bed pretending to meditate. (Yes, that’s the best I could come up with.) As I count the seconds, I watch him meticulously wrap up his gear, including the now-oily tarp. I think to myself that I’ve never wanted any person to care less about the tools of their craft than I do in this very moment — for no real reason other than my own awkwardness. I figure it’s just time to move on here.
‘Can I use the bathroom, sir?’
Come on, nicely-dressed man, you’re killing me!
‘Of course you can, right through there.’
A few moments later, he exits the tent.
I Never Even Got His Name
My very first Ayurvedic massage, no doubt of many while I’m here in India and beyond, has come to a close. Sure, I was never actually concerned that something untoward was going to happen. The whole experience was just hilarious.
In fact, the most bothersome aspect of the whole affair was that I never learned his name. Somehow it felt wrong to have someone graze my balls without me knowing what to call him.
Did I feel a little cheapened by this? Perhaps.
Can I be okay with it, at least in this case? Sure! It was a good massage!!
So thank you, Mr. Nicely-Dressed Man. Next time, please just shut the tent flap on your way out so the squirrels don’t come in again after you leave.
Monster Potion was our family blog, at the now-defunct monsterpotion.com. We wrote about life in general, including our travels around the world in 2012 and 2013, and went quiet by 2014. The pieces republished here are some of mine.
Read more at omnipolar.ai/s/monster-potion
