introduction 35
Beemapalli mosque and Vettucaud church are presented. Th ese places of devo-
tion and healing feature aesthetically engaging environments where ill people
sing, pray, dance about and act out compulsive behaviors amidst music, pleas-
ant smells and scenic outdoor settings.
Chapter 3 (“Lives and Problems”) presents the world of health and healing
in Kerala from the point of view of the people who use these therapies. Th e
chapter centers around the narratives of six people who were seeking treat-
ment for mental problems (two from each of the three main forms of ther-
apy) and presents their accounts alongside commentary on issues that arise in
interviews, thus eliciting stories of illness amidst common cultural tropes and
everyday concerns and pressures, including marriage prospects, family con-
fl icts, work, education and Persian Gulf migration.
In Chapter 4 (“Experiencing the World from Body to Ātman”), I continue
the discussion of the mentalistic West/embodied Other dichotomy in studies
of the body and embodiment. Next, through informant narratives and selec-
tions from Indian phenomenological writings, I present the phenomenological
orientation people engage with in Kerala as a continuum of states of increas-
ing intangibility that range from the body to the immaterial higher self or
ātman—an orientation that is neither a case of living through the body nor
an example of mind-body dualism. I also examine social and historical factors
that may have shaped this phenomenological orientation while showing how
this orientation interacts with the mind-body dualism that has spread as a
result of the proliferation of allopathic medicine.
Chapter 5 (“Cooling Mudpacks: Th e Aesthetic Quality of Th erapy”) pro-
vides a fi ne-tuned analysis of the recurring theme of the aesthetic quality of
therapy that arises throughout this work by comparing specifi c allopathic
and ayurvedic psychiatric procedures and examining informants’ reactions to
treatments and medications. Describing their experiences of allopathic and
ayurvedic psychiatry, many patients reported that they disliked the eff ects of
some allopathic treatments, such as electroconvulsive therapy and injections of
psychotropic drugs, and that they found ayurvedic therapies, such as talapodi-
chil (applying a medicated mudpack to the head), to be at best more pleasant or
at least less abrasive to undergo. Th is analysis also considers relations between
these aesthetic experiences and the phenomenological orientation outlined in
Chapter 4.
As another manifestation of this focus on the process of healing, testimonies
are presented from people who gave up pursuing medically oriented therapies
after years of trying to resolve a chronic problem and found a solution to their
diffi culties not in a cure but through living in an aesthetically engaging, thera-
peutic environment at a mosque, temple or church. Limitations of the concept