Ah, Valentine’s Day and the awful pressure of finding the perfect romantic gift. This year, I had the added weight of having conveniently forgotten the birthday gift, so I had a lot of ground to make up. In a stab at creativity, I opted to give the gift that keeps on giving. I would educate myself on the fine art of romance through massage training, private Salsa lessons, a belly dancing school, cooking classes and a couple’s yoga course. Five classes in five days to inject a lifetime’s worth of spice, oil and chowmein into the love life.
There’s the rub
Meher Malik leads her belly Dancing class by example. Harikrishna Katragadda / Mint
What could be more loving than coming home to your own private, personal masseuse each night? I set out for a one-day training course at the Keraleeya Ayurveda Panchakarma Centre at Sainik Farms, New Delhi, with visions of me as the kind, selfless lover embarking on an enlightened 4-hour path of learning the secret methods to calm my partner’s weary muscles.
Unfortunately, it was far more like science class than a mystical peek into an ancient tradition. For 2 hours, I sat with a teacher and copied down which oils to use to combat psoriasis and which to use for memory loss. I learnt you should never get a massage if you have a fever, and that if I were ever to become pregnant, I better come in for a daily massage or my body would be ruined forever.
I also found out I really needed more face massages, as my teacher happily informed me that I looked much older than she did and she was 10 years older than me, ha ha! Massage class was, thus far, not exactly fun.
After the lesson on my wrinkles, I was ushered into a private room for some hands-on training. Five other women, all working for certificates, though in a month-long course, taught me the basic skills for a head, face and body massage. One woman stood in as the guinea pig, I oiled and rubbed, and the other four clucked over my skills or lack thereof. Then I was tossed on the table to experience what a skilled massage should actually feel like. Obviously, that was the highlight of the course. I lay there as four skilled hands adroitly pushed and prodded me, thinking of the weeks and months it would take me to become a truly skilled pressure-pointer. I quickly came to the conclusion that the next time the boyfriend starts looking a little too stiff around the edges, it would probably be a far wiser investment to just spring for a couple’s massage.
Keraleeya Ayurveda
Panchakarma Centre. A one-day course costs Rs4,500.
For details, log on to
www.kerala-ayurvedics.com
The way of the belly
“If I’m going to die, I might as well be belly dancing!”
Twenty minutes into my belly dancing class, a student rushed in with the news that the Delhi bomb squad was on its way to the building. A suspicious bag, that too two days before Republic Day, had the teeming Model Town market in north Delhi convinced we would soon be under attack.