Il Dio dell'Ayurveda: viaggio in Kerala, nel cuore della rinascita
A week at the court of the beneficent god Dhanvantari, Kerala’s protector of health for 5,000 years. White cap on, green robe donned, we mingled among guests at the historic Somatheeram Indian health center (set right by the sea) to experience the world’s oldest wellness trend, now more popular than ever. First question: are you Vatha, Pitha, or Kapha?
At Somatheeram, the first thing you do upon waking—usually around five—is go for a walk: 40-45 minutes, followed by brushing your teeth (with Ayurvedic toothpaste: mine had mulberry bark and another ten unpronounceable ingredients) and then a bath in coconut water. After bathing, you can meditate—if you can manage—or simply sit quietly for half an hour. Personally, my only worry returning home is how to keep up the coconut milk ritual: in natural stores, you only find a small cup, how will I soak like Empress Poppaea every morning?
But going home is the last thing on your mind. With that fateful coconut in hand—one arrives before every treatment—the healing rituals last three hours a day, held at the Ayurveda Centre, a charming green-clad brick house. You set your personal schedule with the doctor right after your first essential consultation. As for coconuts, don’t worry: Kerala’s endless palm groves are so abundant that India has erected a Coconut Research Center here, crafting new food, cosmetic, and medicinal uses for this most benevolent of plants (“Life is a branch of the palm,” goes a local proverb).
The green robe and white cap guests wear for massages and treatments distinguish them from therapists (all in white or beige) and the housekeeping staff (in orange): it’s like a masala version of The Handmaid’s Tale—more women than men, more Westerners than Indians, and a few incognito faces from Italy’s political and television scene. Everyone seems cheerful, despite the lack of cocktails, beer, or any alcohol at the resort; we feel a bit like "children of eternal love" from the 1970s.
But that’s just a moment—the mystical aspect that might unsettle a skeptical visitor quickly disappears. “Don’t worry, you don’t have to pray or be Hindu—Ayurveda isn’t a religion,” assures Dr. Hemalata. With round glasses and a Gandhi-like braid, she radiates wisdom. “It’s the science of life,” she says. Quite possibly the oldest that exists: five thousand years ago, this rice powder concoction that two therapists in white saris are packing into gauze, making large pouches for tapping over the whole body, already existed and was made the same way. It's thrilling to imagine.
If lush Kerala is Ayurveda Nation, then among the state’s 3,000 Ayurvedic hospitals, the two multi-award-winning Somatheeram Group centers hosting us are the undoubted capital. Named India’s Best Ayurveda Resort ten times, they nestle by a long beach (Somatheeram Ayurveda Village and Manaltheeram Ayurveda Beach Village; don’t mix them up—their names are perilously similar) in Chowara, 12.5 km south of Kovalam. With round cottages and wooden roofs peeking from a jungle-like seaside garden, the setting is perfect. The ocean roars day and night (delightful—maybe that’s part of the deep relaxation? Or is it the endlessly flowing herbal teas?).
Most guests come for the detoxifying Panchakarma (“five actions”): to purify the body. It takes at least nine full days, and many return once a year. Journalists like us test a shorter version: the Rejuvenating, or anti-aging, cure. Sounds excellent. But first, you must discover your dosha (“that which maintains and controls the body”), your mind-body constitution. There are three. Everything you do here—whatever you eat from clay pots at the buffet, the massages, head wraps, washes, or herbal infusions you’re given—all depends on whether you’re Vatha, Pitha, or Kapha.
The doctor, a seasoned Ayurvedic physician trained and qualified in Kerala for over 25 years, seems to make up her mind at a glance, nodding mysteriously as she scribbles on her pad. There’s a shamanic feel to it: why so much focus on hair (apparently its warmth is a clue) or questions about your sex life and temper? Because your type, the ruling principle, depends on how you combine the five elements (earth, water, fire, air, and ether) in your body. Physically, Vathas are “light, slender, always moving,” prone to anxiety. Pithas are “warm, fluid, intense,” prone to anger and jealousy. Kaphas, “heavy, slow, soft” (“We Indians are often Kapha,” she says) and possessive. Once humanity is split into three reassuring categories, everything else follows.
At dinner, the fear of ascetic fasting is dispelled: the buffet is vegetarian or vegan by default, but remarkably tasty and enticing (if you like Indian food—forget pasta and seafood). Countless aromatic breads, fragrant balls, exotic vegetables cooked in new ways, steamed bananas with cardamom and ginger, naan with herbs, and of course, plenty of desserts. Famine averted! Alcohol, if you buy it elsewhere, is allowed, but what’s the point? The daily three-hour treatments verge on psychophysical nirvana, but still leave time for excursions.
Not that anyone’s eager to wander off: “I’m here with my mother and friends,” says Agathe, just out of a group from Perpignan here for Panchakarma. “They said it would be tough, but I’ve been here eight days and feel wonderful—never had such good skin.” There are yoga schools and holistic workshops, but most Ayurvedic guests travel independently, and tranquility reigns supreme. Magical natural treatments take place in semi-darkness, on a walnut table supposedly carved from a single trunk. If you loved the sirovasthy (warm oil poured in a “crown” on your head), you can’t repeat it unless the doctor says so.
Yet, after a thousand herbal scrubs, milk baths, and warm oils cooked over tamarind wood as they have been for millennia, you find yourself sleeping in your not-at-all-spartan villa (don’t imagine a European five-star), waking like a newborn at unthinkable hours to walk along the beach like Prince Siddhartha. No aches, no jetlag, nothing. Whether you’ve attended yoga and meditation classes or gleefully skipped them to show off the cream-and-red sari you were given, it doesn’t matter. Three days after arriving at the court of Dhanvantari, the god of Ayurveda (to whom a Sanskrit greeting is offered—poetic, but so long it lasts several minutes), you know you have never felt so physically well. Like being reborn.
And those around you in matching green robes all agree. Of course, you plan to continue everything back home—squeezing tamarind at five in the morning, warming honey for lemon juice. Of course, you won’t, but you do wish you could bottle Kerala’s secret and take it with you. Among India’s richest, healthiest, most literate states, and one of the world’s only democratically elected communist-led regions. “The secret? Kerala has never really known war. It’s a peaceful place where people have felt good for millennia; we’ve just adapted it for you, the demanding Westerners,” says Baby Mathew, the charismatic founder and chairman of the Somatheeram empire (he’s also a film and TV producer), who for a hobby rescues historic houses, sports a grand mustache and enviable form, and follows Ayurveda to the letter. “Want to do this at home? No problem, I’ll send you some coconut milk.”
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HOW TO GET THERE
Oman Air, named the Middle East’s Leading Airline for both Economy and Business Class, flies to Trivandrum (24 km from Somatheeram) via Muscat (omanair.com).
The resorts: Somatheeram Ayurveda Village and Manaltheeram Ayurveda Beach Village, which we visited, are two of the six healing tourism resorts in Kerala run by the Somatheeram Group (somatheeram.in).