12 chapter
Th ere might be some good aspects in allopathy when one looks at its research
and other things, but if we want to get good coolness [kulirmma], if we want to
reach a good goal [nalla lakshyam]... Right now, speaking about our life, what
is it? If I have a fever, I must get better [literally, must get changed—māranam].
For what? To go to work the next day. Get a cold, get changed [māranam] in
order to go to school the next day. Th is is the level at which we maintain our
health. If we have a supreme aim in life, ayurveda will help us attain it.Th ese brief but insightful comments, like those of many other patients I
met, delve directly into phenomenology and the nature of embodiment, issues
that captivate me as a medical anthropologist. Most notably, the aesthetic
experience of medical treatment is a central concern for the patients I inter-
viewed. Ajit specifi cally comments here on the visceral experience of diff erent
therapies. Giving “shocks,” or electroconvulsive therapy, he considers painful,
whereas he reports that his “head got cooled” from ayurvedic therapy, evoking
a local idiom for a pleasant aesthetic eff ect. I found that similar experiences
were recounted by other people suff ering mental affl ictions in Kerala, many of
whom abandoned allopathic psychiatric treatment to pursue a diff erent form
of healing because of what they experienced as uncomfortable or abrasive
methods of treatment. Whereas allopathy may involve an occasionally painful
healing process, patients report that ayurveda usually provides less abrasive
and, at times, aesthetically pleasant therapeutic experiences. Ajit employs the
Malayalam term kulirmma, which translates roughly as “coolness” and “satis-
faction,” to describe the aesthetic experience he obtained through ayurvedic
treatment.
On one level, it seems perfectly obvious that patients would be concerned
with the pain or pleasure they experience. And yet, the ways in which the
aesthetic pleasantness of treatments diff er between medical systems have been
overlooked in studies of mental healing. Scholars tend not to take aesthetic
pleasantness seriously either as a source of insight about concepts such as
embodiment, healing and curing, or as a source of insight into critical public
health issues such as how and why patients seek treatments, make decisions
about treatments, and navigate multiple medical systems. Th e seemingly mun-
dane fact that patients tend to prefer a therapy that feels good—or is “cooling,”
as they say in South India—over one that is more abrasive or painful is actually
a rich point of departure for medical anthropological inquiry.
In investigating aesthetics, I am also concerned with experiences that run
much deeper than simple pleasure or pain. In the preceding quote, Ajit also
claims that ayurvedic doctors attempt to bring the patient to “another level,”
a positive transformation he alleges can occur through ayurvedic therapy.
Th is also evokes the experience of people who seek religious therapies at