The photo says it all. Toilet tissue in the foreground. Fading light in the background. You probably can’t see it, but the woman sitting on the mattress – Rebekah, my wife – is despondent, worn out; deflated. This is what a day spent clearing out your bowels will do to you, especially if part of your treatment involves a complete fast on the day of evacuation.
Waiting for the fasting ordeal to end and the eating to begin.
P-Day
This was it, the moment we’d spent seven days building towards. Six days of fasting. Four days of drinking ghee. Four days of massages. Rice porridge. Bland soups and dhals. The day of reckoning had arrived. Joke about it as much as you like, but cleaning out your system like this not only saps the body but also the mind. It’s also not very pretty or easy on your knees when you have to spend all day pooing over a squat toilet.
Like the previous three mornings, our day started with an oil massage. I don’t know if they’d been saving their best for last, but they were so good I had to be woken for my steam. To loosen our bowels we were given a strange brown paste that was the consistency of poly-filler. After our bland diet I found it vaguely pleasing to the palate and quite easy to consume. I later found Rebekah gagged her way through hers. Maybe a week of eating next to nothing had dulled my taste buds to the point where they were telling me lies.
For the day we were to be domiciled in a large room; they’d kitted it out with a pair of soft mattresses on the floor. By the time my massage had finished and I was brought in, Rebekah had already been there for an hour. It took 90 minutes for my bowels to loosen and when they did it was hardly worth the effort it took to crouch for that first time. They kick-started into action proper about an hour later. For each motion we were to record the time we went, the consistency of what was passed and what symptoms we had e.g. stomach cramps. A young doctor came by every hour to check on us. After 16 visits I stopped taking notes. Rebekah made it to a dozen. I might as well have set up camp in the bathroom at home later that night, so frequently did I need to go. Throughout the entire experience I never trusted a fart.
Invigoration and depletion
We had a laptop and a few movies to watch, but when your day is dominated by getting up and going to the toilet, very quickly it becomes boring. Exhausting, too, when everything’s coming out and nothing’s going in, but that’s what we signed up for. I should’ve been hungrier but as the day wore on my appetite decreased. In fact, when I was given the opportunity to eat rice water – the liquid left over from boiled rice – I declined, as I had no appetite. Strangely, I felt invigorated. Being empty and clean felt good. We were also given a handful of raisins and a couple of small chunks of jaggery to suck on if we felt too depleted. I didn’t. For some reason, the mere thought of food was anathema to me. I think my energy levels actually increased. Or maybe I just thought they did and instead was experiencing that weird wired sensation you get when you go passed the point of hunger and fatigue. I do remember feeling a little lightheaded.
Rebekah, on the other hand became increasingly agitated. Her mood darkened. A ravenous hunger set in. The longer we spent in that room the more it became a cell rather than a refuge. A rebellious urge to leave overcame her and all she could talk about was food and fleeing. As far as she was concerned we had made a big mistake. It didn’t make it any easier that Selva had decided she was going to have one of her uncooperative days and was feeling as cooped up as her mother. Add to the mix Rebekah’s period unexpectedly arriving a week early and it’s surprising she didn’t pass out due to lack of energy.
By 6pm Rebekah was ready to go regardless of whether the doctor thought it was time or not. She took our pulse, asked a few questions, signed us out and gave us a menu for the next three days to ease our way back into a normal eating. This almost broke Rebekah who was very vocal in her defiance of the doctor’s recommendations, to me.
The aftermath and the verdict
Though it was painful for Rebekah, for the most part, we did slowly work our way back to normal eating. We did eat some food that was perhaps a little spicier than recommended but didn’t feel any ill effects from doing so. At the very end of it all we were given a list of foods deemed suitable for our doshas, which for me basically means giving up or minimising everything I love: sugar, coffee, spicy food, salt, and sparkling water. Makes for one very boring and bland diet.
When I first set out on this process I had wanted to get some kind of quantifiable and long lasting result. The doctor had said I would have more energy and be more flexible. He was right, especially in the first few days. The bland food we ate sustained me. It was all I needed. A little fruit on the side. I came to realise that my palette is heavily influenced by flavour and that not all these flavours are good for me. Does that mean my diet is going to get a complete overhaul and that I’m going to follow the ayurvedic dietary instructions given to me?
I’d really like to say yes, but to be honest, right now I’m not ready to commit. I remain very much attached to flavour and all the sensations that come with it, though identifying when I’m actually hungry is still difficult for me to ascertain.
The particular kind of panchakarma you choose can also have an effect on your experience and suit a specific dosha/body type. For someone like Rebekah, who needs a lot of food and burns it off quickly, Virechana probably isn’t ideal as her energy stores depleted far quicker than mine. Being of chunkier build and not requiring as much food to function, I think it worked for me.
Would I do it again?
Probably not. The short term effects were great. I got through the last day fine but I’m not sure if I’ll experience any positive effects, long term, unless I stick to the ayurvedic diet I was prescribed. So, if the only thing I get out of this is a complete clean out of my digestive system then I'm happy with that. Rebekah? I think she’s just happy she can eat again – unfettered.