The Gandhi ashram lies on the west bank of the River Sabarmati, it’s an enclave of purity in Gujarat’s largest city, Ahmedabad. I felt blessed to find a room at the guest house that afforded me easy opportunity to look out on Gandhi’s prayer ground.
There were surprisingly few guests staying there, at such a historic ashram where Gandhi set out on the salt march of 1930, in defiance of taxation imposed by British rulers.
It consisted of several simple vernacular, white painted buildings, with roofs of terracotta tiles. There were well-swept spaces in between, where small sculptural almond trees with their red ochre painted trunks, provided essential shade.
Nearby was my favourite part of the ashram; its small, well-stocked bookshop which offered books and booklets on Gandhi’s message. It reflected the civility of the institution. I enjoyed my time there because I was always welcomed, but never bothered.
The manager was an affable and conscientious man who seemed to especially relish overseas visitors, and he befriended me on my first visit. I would enjoy watching him sell a book. At the point of purchase, he would take it from the customer, handling it with reverence. Having it wrapped in a page of the Hindu Times newspaper was an option. The customer was then presented with a hand-written and signed receipt, headed by a linocut image of Gandhi stepping out from the ashram on that famous march. The thud of his rubber stamp upon the receipt denoted the closure of the deal, whereupon he would gracefully hand over the purchase as if it were a Faberge egg.
The same procedure was followed for all sales, including my first purchase. It was a booklet on Gandhi’s ‘Discourses from the Gita’, costing me the price of chewing gum.
I found these simple, low-quality, low-cost, productions very attractive. On my second visit I delved further into my budget with the purchase of Gandhi’s autobiography, ‘My experiments with Truth’. It was four hundred and twenty pages of small print on rough quality paper, not very well bound. I was courteously presented with a receipt no greater than the price of two cold drinks. This weighty volume will forever carry his message, as it just about remains in one piece 35 years later.
The bookshop was a good way to start the day, and a visit always included a friendly chat with the manager. On this particular morning he seemed honoured when I told him that I was setting off to explore his beautiful city, via the west bank of the wide Sabarmati river.
The January weather was perfect for a North European. With a cooling breeze blowing off the water, the air was fragrant with bougainvillea. I felt at peace with the world. The noises from within the traffic didn’t interrupt that peace until the frantic, staccato ringing of a high-pitched bicycle bell pierced the pervading hum. It became louder, suggesting it was getting closer. I looked across the street to see what it was.
‘Mr. Steffan! Mr. Steffan!’ was the alarming cry from over the way. A dark green Hero bicycle darted over to my side of the road, and I felt a little startled to see the bookshop manager riding it. He surged over to me and braked hard, sliding on the gritty surface. He wiped a bead of sweat from his brow above the heavy black rim of his glasses. Once he had caught his breath he said to me, ‘You must come quickly sir, you must be returning to the ashram’.
I became concerned, thinking irrationally that my room had become infested, or that the police were looking for me.
‘What’s the problem?’ I asked.
‘There is Mr. Peter, sir. He is at the ashram. Mr. Peter Ruhr’
‘Yes?’, I slowly exhaled. ‘What about it?’
‘You must be meeting him sir, please come’, he said.
With a bemused expression on my face, I stammered, ‘But why? Who is he?’
There was a slight pause as the manager’s eyes opened wide. He turned his hands over and extended his fingers, and from his chin to his waist he made a sweeping movement parallel to his torso.
I could only assume that this gesture meant that he was of a different appearance to himself, perhaps indicating a different ethnic origin, and a different culture. He continued, ‘Because he is one of you people sir, you must be meeting him’. I was unclear as to what his point was, so I asked, ‘What about it? I don’t think I need to meet him just because he is European’.
‘Yes sir, you must. He is from German. Mr Peter Ruhr’, he emphasised.
I thanked him for letting me know that a German guest had arrived at the ashram, but that I didn’t understand the urgency. I told him that I had met many German people before and that I was planning to return that evening and would be happy to meet Mr Ruhr then.
‘No, no sir. You must be coming now. He is taking the breakfast. You can be meeting him now.’
Despite my protestations the bookshop manager would not let this go, he continued his insistence to a point where I felt I couldn’t refuse him without appearing rude. He was a kind man, and I took into consideration that he had always shown me such polite respect.
We retraced our half-mile journey back towards the ashram, and I wondered why he had been so persistent. Surely, he had met many Europeans in his position at the ashram. Perhaps he enjoyed being helpful in trying to unite them, so that they could yearn together for cool weather, discuss the state of each other’s liver or bowels, or reminisce over favourite foods that were unavailable in Gujarat?
We entered the large refectory which was a more modern addition to the ashram, and Mr. Peter Ruhr was its only diner when we arrived there. He was wearing local home-spun cottons and was taking a late breakfast. As we were introduced he seemed as puzzled by the situation as I was. The manager returned to the bookshop he had closed in order to pursue me, leaving Peter Ruhr and I alone together. I took a seat and ordered a glass of masala chai.
Peter Ruhr had established a Gandhi Foundation in Berlin, and he visited India regularly in order to study a particular aspect of Gandhi’s life. His academic knowledge was quite overwhelming, but once we had got over the initial awkwardness of the situation, we both relaxed. He was quite humble, revealing that his objective on this particular trip was to learn more about Ayurveda (the knowledge of life, based on the ancient Sanskrit texts), which was central to Gandhi’s approach to diet, daily practice, medicine and well-being.
I already had a level of interest in this, and I was keen to add to my limited knowledge on the subject. Peter Ruhr was encouraging. He suggested that I might visit a small family run Ayurvedic vaidyasala (hospital) in Kerala, should I be heading in that direction. He thought that they would be happy to talk with me there, and to show me around. He impressed upon me that they made medicines and oils on site, had treatment rooms, and that there was provision for in-patients. There was a crumpled paper napkin resting on the table so I tore off a strip. I scribbled down the address of the vaidyasala, then screwed it up and tucked it into a corner of my money belt.
From Ahmedabad my journey took me south, and onto Goa, where I was enjoying respite from the intensities of Indian travel, until one very uncomfortable night. In my sleep, an iron grip tore at my intestines and I felt I was being ripped apart. During an intermission of these periodic cramps, I was more than happy to crawl out of my room to a primitive hole in the ground to relieve myself of the consequential deluge that followed. The following morning there would be no reprieve. I saw a doctor who matter-of-factly prescribed anti-biotics, collected his modest fee and advised me to follow an appropriate diet for the next ten days.
I continued my journey south. One week later I had managed to stagger to the beautiful regal city of Mysore, when the torture resumed. The result was a different doctor, a different anti-biotic, a similar fee and the same diet.
Another week on and further south still, I remained overcome by lassitude but managed to cross the Western Ghats, and the border into Kerala, finding myself in the city of Ernakulam, where my nemesis struck once more. I put my dwindling faith in allopathy for a third time. A change of anti-biotics was prescribed, enabling me to limp further south to stay in the small idyllic coastal village of Varkala in central Kerala.
Varkala was a paradise and I took respite there, but my symptoms remained and I was rapidly losing weight. I had little faith in the remedies that had been prescribed. I was gaunt and becoming weaker, not interested in the nirvana surrounding me, or in the obliging family that was hosting me. I worried that it might be something serious. I could not face another plate of rice gruel with black salt, and was at a loss to know how to carry on.
From my matrass on the concrete floor of my lovely spartan room, my mind drifted back to that meeting with Peter Ruhr, six weeks previous. I could only remember parts of our conversation on Ayurveda, but had a recollection of having scribbled down an address. My only memory of the location of the vaidyasala was that it was in the state of Kerala, and that alone gave me a spark of hope that had been absent since starting to take the anti-biotics. I can only deduce that it was due to my weakness and relative misery, that I had not had the presence of mind to recall that conversation with Peter Ruhr. It could offer me a viable alternative to the ineffective efficacy of the poisonous medicines I had been ingesting. If only I could find that scrap of paper!
This mustered some energy in me, and an extensive, near frantic search finally led to me unravelling that screwed up ball of paper napkin, tucked away in the corner of my money belt. The address was barely legible.
I took out a map and looked for a town with a name that looked something like the one I had written down. It became fairly clear that it could only have been the town of Changanacherry, which was not too far away from where I was, perhaps about 3 hours, but my concern was having the strength to get there.
My host family and I worked very hard to communicate, and the essential information was eventually conveyed. There would be a direct, empty bus setting off from only 50 yards away from the house at 10am the following morning!
This may have been a remarkable stroke of good fortune, but it felt more like it was my destiny, and I began to hope that this bus might be leading me to a promised land, and it fanned that earlier spark of hope.
The following morning, the parked-up bus was indeed empty, and I asked the driver to let me know, when we had arrived in Changanacherry. We drove through what seemed like an endless corridor of coconut palms, telegraph poles and banana trees; egrets, drongos, and kingfishers dotted the vivid green rice paddy, spread out in between. I did not have the strength to stay awake and marvel. As we approached what looked like the beginning of a town, the driver roused me by yelling, ‘Changanacherry. Get out!’
I got out and looked around for a rickshaw to take me to a street whose name I couldn’t be sure of. Not looking forward to that task I looked across the road. There was a free-standing street sign, encased in concrete, it had a name on it that looked very like the one I had scribbled down 6 weeks before. Quite incredibly it was Mannam Road, and I gently shook my head in disbelief.
In a state of visceral calm, I walked along it confident that my pre-destined fate was somewhere down this prosperous, leafy suburban lane. In the climbing heat of the early afternoon a group of schoolgirls in navy blue uniforms approached from the opposite direction, they looked as fresh as the red hibiscus flowers they wore in their hair. I asked them if there was a hospital nearby. They all giggled. One of them pointed to a slightly buckled, rusting yellow sign advertising the entrance to the Sree Sankara Ayurveda Vaidyasala.
I passed through the gates and felt I was entering somewhere of consequence, much like I did on my first day at grammar school. The verdant grounds beneath a ceiling of sentinel coconut palms, contained simple, charming buildings washed in a pale-yellow paint. The path led to the main office which was annexed with a consultation room and a waiting room. This vernacular building was capped by a traditional clay-tiled, steeply pitched roof with a curved ridge line. Not dissimilar to the Rumah Adat houses in Indonesia; it resembled a boat.
I followed this path until my unheralded appearance was met by two excited, and slightly flustered, members of staff. A plastic chair was dusted down with a bare hand, and offered to me. A nurse was sent off to fetch me a cooling drink of cumin tea. There was an inquisitive smile on everyone’s face, but no-one felt confident enough to use their limited English. I sat quietly, as I was unable to speak Malayalam, and waited a little while for a doctor to arrive from his weekly out-patient clinic in the centre of town. I felt content as I looked out from the shady waiting room adjacent the richly stocked dispensary into the brilliant light outside.
A nearby lorry had been manually unloaded, leaving piles of tree trunks, roots and different barks and leaves to be strung together into bundles, carted off with billet hooks and later on, to be alchemized into medicinal oils that would replace the toxins that had been invading my body for over a month.
The air within these grounds discharged a pure scent of vital sap, natural and wholesome, it was a raw and earthy smell, fostering an intrigue that was replacing my now diminishing despair. I had become convinced that this was the place I was meant to be in.
With absolute commitment, I stayed at the Sree Sankara vaidyasala for 8 days as an in-patient. I underwent daily massage with warm medicinal oils, alongside some strange and wonderful procedures, and several uncomfortable treatments that I didn’t understand at the time. My medicine intake was further supplemented by a freshly cooked, considered diet of vegetarian Keralan food. I received a level of care that was warm, professional and attentive. I had arrived feeling grey, but I left there with my spirit restored and I had become well enough to begin the slow 3,500km adventure north to Kashmir.
This is not the end of the tale. Happily recovering from a lingering dose of ‘Delhi belly’ is a nice story, but it is just the beginning of the saga.
On arrival at the vaidyasala, my initial consultation was with Dr. Vijaya Chandradas Nair.
He was a gentle man who listened intensely with his eyes, and he struck me as a born healer. We talked about my state of health and I was initially reticent about an underlying ‘incurable’ arthritic condition that had more than inconvenienced me for 14 years. I was determined not to detract from my immediate health problem, but he was equally determined to understand the whole picture.
He was adept at using silence to draw out further information from me, and I became unnerved and fascinated that he could clearly see the deeper problem that I was naively hiding from him. His gentle, repeated use of the phrase ‘Anything else?’ followed by a well-judged silence and an impassive expression, led to my surrendering my medical history, and we eventually talked at length about the ayurvedic approach to dealing with my chronic condition.
I was left to grapple with my thoughts, my growing confidence in Dr. Vijayan and the principles of Ayurveda.
During the following monsoon, I took the requisite 3 months treatment at the vaidyasala. I equipped myself with the knowledge and practice of how to live my life with far less symptoms, for which I remain forever grateful.
Notwithstanding my carelessness with a screwed-up piece of napkin, the significance of a serendipitous meeting with Peter Ruhr, will never be underestimated. Neither will my gratitude for the contaminated food I ate in Goa, but my greatest appreciation, is for the mystery that still remains.
Just what was the original motivation of a kind stranger who managed a bookshop, to vehemently insist that I should meet ‘One of my people’?