studies with a medicine man

gurukkal is young, early 30's. he waited for me to sit on his motorcycle, to sit behind him and his wife and his two year old twin girls, who sit on the space before him, 1 grabbing on to the bike handles, the other on to her. he dodges the debris on the unfinished street he sometimes stays in; stays still in the wild wind caressing his thick black hair; tilts past auto-rickshaws, fishermen and time.

he skids into a narrow block where there are men n women sprawled on the street, politiking, hawking, vending. barely pausing, he scoops his daughters n hands them to an older woman, with lines like a banyan over her thin face. her thin arms stick out from an old once colorful sari.

"that's my mom," he says, looking back at me. i wave at her, as we fly off.

he has to drop his wife off in the city, leaves me at the bus stop on the way. gurrukal gently looks at me with depth - his black eyes in mine, mine in his. we never made a date to meet again, never fixed a price on studying with him. didn't even exchange info.

that was our first meeting. we mostly looked at each other the whole time, feeling each other out. i met with him another two times within the span of over a month before he nodded, before i knew that he would be the one i wanted to study under.

this past week i've been watching gurukkall at work, working with him, training in kalari-chikitsha. at night, sometimes, after 3 or 4 massages, after bandaging, repairing a dozen broken/fractured, bruised limbs, after picking up/dropping off/feeding his kids, he is teaching kalari, reviews moves with youngins, and then an hour later with an adult batch. i join in on occasion, if we don't have patients to do nadi-massage on. but we usually do, shortly after the kalari class, n these days we r tag-teaming. he does one part of our patient's body then nods at me. i move in using the strokes he's taught me, reminded of the mantra he's instilled in me when i am feeling tired, lazy, bothered - "remember that this is the work of divinity, that when u r working on them, u r working on yourself n that u should always give your best."

serenaded by the sound of the ocean that sits outside the largely fishermen hood of muslims n hindus on the fringes, i press into the veins of our patient n get Deeper in the work. all praise is due...