three therapies of south india 81
around the man’s upper arm, which appeared to calm him somewhat. He then
walked out into the sandy area of the mosque grounds, and a crowd assembled
as he began shouting again, this time more intelligibly, about money and how
he feels it controls people’s lives.
Although the healing routines at Beemapalli were less structured and pro-
grammatic than the routines at Chottanikkara, healing at Beemapalli was a
“pleasant,” aesthetically engaging process. Th e outdoor setting at the mosque
was visually impressive—a large, scenic structure with spacious grounds,
the Beemapalli mosque compound was one of the largest open spaces in the
crowded city of Trivandrum. Incense and jasmine fl owers brought further
sensory stimulus, and although music was not as ubiquitous as it was at
Chottanikkara, the plaintive, melodic calls to prayer and the recorded and live
music played during festivals provided aural engagements that are not encoun-
tered at clinical settings. Vettucaud church, a few miles up the coast and set
right on the beach looking out on the Arabian Sea, likewise off ers an aestheti-
cally engaging healing environment.
Vettucaud Church
Th e father of a mentally ill young Hindu man we met at Beemapalli explained
that he had intended to take his son to Vettucaud church but after reaching
the East Fort bus stand he felt a last minute compulsion to go to Beemapalli
instead. Th is switch is easy to make as the buses to these neighborhoods leave
from the same section of the East Fort bus stand. Th e bus to the Christian
neighborhood of Vettucaud also takes a route that is similar to the Beemapalli
bus except that after the airport the Vettucaud bus turns right and heads up
the coastal road. For this Hindu father, it may have ultimately made little dif-
ference which place he chose to visit. He may simply have wished to try the
“medicine” of another religion, and, like many families we met, he may be moti-
vated by a pragmatic willingness to give anything a try in the hope that it may
help. Th e term for “mosque” and “church” is, after all, the same in Malayalam.
Th ey are both known as “palli.” “Beemapalli mosque” is just “Beemapalli” in
Malayalam, and Vettucaud church is known as “Vettucaudpalli.” Th ese two
creeds that came out of the traditions of Abraham look somewhat similar
from the point of view of Hinduism, and there was a time when Christians,
Jews, and Muslims on the Malabar coast were seen as a single community “of
the book” (Ghosh 1992).
Th e location of these Muslim and Christian communities recalls this past
when these religious traditions arrived across the sea that the neighborhoods
now face in waves of trade, in the case of Islam, and proselytization, in the case