Adventures of a Mundane Research Scholar- I

Fair Warning: This post straddles both my personal and academic confusions and choices.

I was warned that this would happen, that when I chose to work on something like Ayurveda, I would one day find myself being one of the subjects of my study. And that day has come, when I, like others in the cases that I read, am appalled at my lifestyle and is consciously taking decisions to change it. Over the course of research on New Age health, I have had to look at various websites that cater to a population looking to lead a more holistic lifestyle rather than the very individualised and compartmentalised ones that they believe themselves to be leading. I was amazed at what people were willing to do towards this end and how it meant deliberating and making changes in multiple aspects that would have been taken for granted so far. This extended to stuff like making your own soaps, going off contraceptive pills and cycling to work. A considerable number of people believed they would find peace when they start thinking in terms of the universe, and themselves as part of the cosmos they lived in. And who wouldn’t want peace, huh?

These were my thoughts when I realised that I could also alter my lifestyle and consumerist choices for the better. A series of constant illness further nudged me along this path, with friends remarking jocularly that I shouldn’t be falling sick because I was studying about health :D. And thus, a period of contemplation and looking upon online journals such as the elephantjournal and wellnessmama, I decided where to start. Apart from food (which I cannot control much owing to the mess food), what other products do I use that is pumped with chemicals, and which could potentially lead to cancer, skin infections, unnatural body odours and most of all, which forms a chunk of my contribution to an irreversible littering? Body care products, what else!!! And hence my experimentation with alternative body care products began.

Being an on again- off again user of powdered herbs and leaves and nuts for skin care, that part didn’t thrill me much. It was the one with deodorants that really got me going. I read repeatedly about what the aerosol in the spray cans do to your body and to the environment. And what had remained uninteresting to me suddenly became really important. Here was something I could at least try to change with my own agency, I thought. The recipes for home-made anti-perspirants were many; I decided to go my way. Instead of alcohol-based deodorants in plastic cans, it was oil based ones in glass-cans that now have my loyalty. And these essential oils are better smelling too! Apart from these, the best part was that I could combat perspiration smells with stuff that grew in abundance around my hostel, namely neem and lemon leaves. Yes, crush them, boil them and bath in them. I don’t need any spa to do that for me!

There are so many ways in which body-care could be made more nature and health friendly and cheap. While materials needed for this are sold by corporate at exorbitant prices, it always pays to buy these stuffs from local vendors, and maybe even to grow them when one can. It is highly impossible to think of a day passing without plastic cans, and I still have a back-up deodorant can, for those evenings when I have to run somewhere with no time for a good bath, but otherwise even these small changes in one’s daily routines could actually make one feel like she is leading a more, well, holistic life J. And that’s good, right?

While not everything that I read about is going to be assimilated into my life, a few have been. The lines between my research and my life have been blurred and I am not complaining. Maybe this is a hazard of working on such topics, but if you don’t let yourself to be swayed, at least to this extent, then what kind of an (not)all-absorbing person would I be. This also puts me in a position where I need to see that in my academic writing, I do not glorify those same practices, by failing to look at its criticisms. In short, at every stage, I need to make sure that I do not confuse the academic and the personal, though interactions between the two are inevitable. Thrilling times, indeed J.

And so, while this is where I stop short of being a complete New Age follower, this is where I also stop not caring about how I live. I owe it to myself and the world around and I am grateful to what I do for this awakening. Now, the task of dealing with the boundaries and the confusions, but more on that, later.

Essential oil (lemon grass oil) and jasmine and musk scented attar.