SALILA SUKUMARAN
“I had formed the opinion that if your body got too sick, you went to an Ayurveda healer. However, during the Panchakarma healing in 2015, I felt my energy body expand and contract palpably on several occasions. I experienced the rise and release of old congealed emotions. I heard my spirit communicate with me. I tasted an exquisitely painful and pleasurable spiritual awakening. This reconnection with my spirit was unexpected.”
Salila Sukumaran is an Ayurveda health coach based in Mountain View, CA.
Through her wellness travel concierge Ayurgamaya, Salila provides tailored Ayurveda and yoga wellness journeys to India and Bali for an immersive experience.
For her work in promoting yoga and Ayurveda, Salila was recognised as an ambassador by AYUSH, India’s health ministry. Salila has appeared on London Real TV, is quoted in Washington Post, MindBodyGreen, Authority Magazine, and Money Magazine, among others.
Salila is from an Ayurveda lineage from Kerala, South India, and shares her knowledge through Ayurveda workshops and webinars. She learned Ayurveda from the elders of her family and enjoys demonstrating how simple rituals can bring profound shifts in overall health.
Follow Salila:
Website: Ayurgamaya
Instagram: @salila.ayurveda
“During COVID, Ayurveda has become the language with which I am in communication with my ancestors.”
What does Ayurveda mean to you?
Ayurveda is my family's history to me, and like my family's history, the rituals of love and belonging will pass on to my daughter. Ayurveda, to me, is the love of my mother, my aunts, and my grandparents. Ayurveda was introduced to me through their loving admonitions like, “If you do this, you will be healthy forever” and so on. Ayurveda was in the food they cooked for me that left me feeling like we were abundant as royals even though we lived carefully. Ayurveda was in the rules they followed when I caught a fever, and the flowers and fruit they showed me growing wild in our garden.
When did you discover it? How long have you been practising it?
My grandparents were practising Vaidyas and priests. My maternal great-grandfather, Kunjan Panicker Vaidyar, was a physician to the Travancore Royal House who was licensed to teach students at his sabha madham academy.
Only the most intelligent were taught the healing art of Ayurveda. My great-grandfather chose his daughter, my grandmother, as his successor even though he had an elder son. She had the auspicious signs and the enormous intelligence required to memorise thousands of shlokas, Sanskrit verses, that hold source knowledge.
Sadly, my great-grandfather passed away before my grandmother could complete her apprenticeship.
Even though my great-grandmother Kurumba Amma Vaidyar was a healer as well, women were not recognised the same way male physicians were. However, the advantage of being part of a lineage of practising women vaidyas lies in the thorough knowledge of medicine and pathya and apathya, diet rules, for the healthy and sick. Male physicians seldom step into the kitchen to gain mastery over Ayurvedic cooking.
My earliest experiences of Ayurveda came from shadowing my grandmothers. One took me by the hand when she went collecting herbs from the fields, the pond, and the garden. Some herbs went in the cow's fodder, some became a side dish and some got crushed and extracted into medicinal oils. Another sent me on an errand to identify leaves in the shrubbery and bring them over to make poultices to heal her stomach ulcers.
Yet another would show me how she extracted goat butter and added it to her morning kapi coffee for her Vata bones. I would also get to drink a cup of delicious goat butter coffee.
I have been sharing these healing rituals in my wellness practice since 2015, working with busy lawyers, physicians, executives, yoga leaders, some of whom go on to heal with an immersive Panchakarma in India or Bali.
What drew you to Ayurveda?
The women who practised Ayurveda daily, my grandmothers, drew me in with their natural ease with themselves.
I remember the elders of my family as sweet-smelling and beautiful to the very end. They had luminous skin, and laughed easily. I wanted what they were having!
My mother, being a military wife, was often away at defence bases, far from lush Kerala, South India. She practised the rituals on and off and experimented with the regional cuisines as we moved once every three to five years.
India is a mini Europe-like country, and customs, traditions, culture, and language change every 100 kilometres or so. As a young unsupported mother of three children, my very Kapha mother went through phases of darkness and withdrawal. But when she was happy, we got to taste the regional cuisine, make traditional meals, Ayurvedic oils, and healing salves.
We visited her local friends and saw Ayurveda in action in their lives, so different from ours. From these experiences, I developed a great respect for the diverse regional flavours of Ayurveda all across India.
I understood why food changed so often with the seasons in the snow-capped Himalayas compared to tropical South India, where we ate almost the same kind of foods all year round, how one could die if one did not eat a warming diet when the temperature dropped.
I was especially fascinated by how mother made the medicinal oils and salves and explained the right paka, or consistency. One slip and the medicine would harm instead of heal. We would make kajal or kohl with Bhringraj (false daisy) and catch the dark smoke residue on a fresh banana stem.
When we travelled home to Kerala, I was inseparable from my grandmothers who had a quiet stillness about them, unlike my mother. I felt secure in their presence.
Their day began and ended with their faith. They were always inside and outside constantly, collecting herbs, tending to the animals, healing, cooking, gardening always at the same steady pace.
It was not that my grandmothers did not have a challenging life, but they were peaceful even when expressing a forceful opinion or disagreeing about something. They seemed rooted in their rituals and their ways. My mother, in contrast, had her ups and downs as a modern woman navigating change, an absent husband, frequent disruptive moves, and loss of community. I wanted the secure stabilising effect of living a life in tune with nature, just like my grandmothers.
Has it helped you with anything major?
(Part of this answer has been taken from a published interview with Arianna Huffington's Thrive Global)
About five years ago, I was struggling to conceive a second child and was interrupted by a series of miscarriages that left me feeling depleted. I was at my most miserable and as a result, my marriage was nosediving to the lowest point ever. After my fifth miscarriage in three years, I returned home to my mother in Kerala, South India to recover.
My mother encouraged me to heal with Ayurvedic Panchakarma therapy.
I was skeptical about what Ayurveda could do for my mysterious condition of “secondary infertility.” I am a western-educated modern woman, who grew up in concrete cities far away from the deep South of India, my ancestral home. My only introduction to this tradition so far had been from my mother’s constant admonitions that if I did not follow the daily rituals I’d dry up into an old hag before my time! If there were a meme for my childhood, it would say “My Vata imbalance,” with a picture of a crazy curly-headed restless creative child.
At that point I did not even connect that we were following Ayurveda rituals at home, I thought all families from Kerala, India were “weird” like mine.
I checked in to the Ayurvedic retreat run by a lineage my mother knew well, and life was never to be the same again.
At the end of three weeks of intense oiling, purgations, drinking cups of herbal ghees, and sweating rivers of toxins, my body was buzzing with energy! My skin was clear, I was feeling sexy, and I even noticed my hair had grown a couple of inches. My legs that I have been ashamed of all my life for being too skinny, now winked back at me in the mirror, as fine as a gazelle's.
It felt like being madly in love, but with my own self. I wanted every woman in the world to experience the delicious powerful sense of selfhood that I had experienced.
My artist brother slapped together a website over a weekend, and like a true San Francisco Bay Area startup, I began to document my experience from my makeshift office in the garage.
Fat volumes of Ayurveda classics found their way to my kitchen table, my coffee table, and the bedside table. All of my mother’s warnings now made complete sense to me. I understood why the elders of my family did what they did and what they meant when they wove words like Vata, Pitta, and Kapha into their casual vocabulary.
I felt like shutters inside of me had flung open.
I launched my wellness travel planning service, Ayurgamaya, to help those seeking spiritual healing experiences in India. I began working with the best Ayurveda and Yoga retreats India and Bali have to offer.
I connected the new knowledge to what I had learned from my undergraduate studies in biology, botany, chemistry, diet, and nutrition (I am a classically trained chef and nutritionist from India’s National Institute of Hotel Management). I cross-referenced my ideas with physician friends, both Ayurvedic and Western. I wanted to present Ayurveda as solidly rooted in basic physics and not as spiritual mumbo jumbo and began to develop lesson plans. I started holding events at venues like New Living Expo, Fortune 50 corporations in the Bay Area. My unique perspective on Ayurveda and wellness travel made its way into Mind Body Green, Washington Post, Ariana Huffington’s Thrive Global, to name a few.
Is Ayurveda part of your everyday life or just for your medicine cabinet or fall-back routine?
Ayurveda is all of the above and then some more for me.
During COVID, Ayurveda has become the language with which I am in communication with my ancestors. My great-grandma Kurumba Amma Vaidyar, was shunned by her son for practising Ayurveda openly like a man.
Great-grandma was in her mid-forties when she caught a bout of deadly typhoid soon after her husband passed away. When Ayurveda could not help her any longer, she was taken to the local British hospital and left for dead.
The kind English physician who ran the local dispensary looked after her. After she regained her strength, she started to assist him in his work. Perhaps it was clear to him that she was a traditional healer. Perhaps there was affection between them.
From then on, even after she was discharged to return home, she continued her daily visits to the British dispensary. She walked several kilometres every day to learn the western model of patient care.
It was the 1930s, and the winds of change were blowing and it was clear India was no longer safe for the British. When the British physician departed for England, he gifted her with his brown leather medical bag and equipment.
Great-grandma began to call on her patients with this bag in her hands, often walking long distances, a risky affair in those early days when the forest grew thick everywhere, and unaccompanied women were frequently assaulted.
A working woman implied the men of the family were unable to provide; this was frustrating for her son who was almost a young adult then. The men in the family shunned her for bringing shame upon them. Nevertheless, she continued to practise medicine in defiance.
When she was forbidden to leave her home, she moved out completely and moved in with my grandmother and her son-in-law, my grandfather.
At her passing, her son even refused to light her pyre, a terrible fate that would leave a soul hanging in purgatory. She chose to practise knowing she may never be offered last rites. She had hundreds of her patients in attendance, many of whom owed their lives to her, yet her son did not come forward.
My grandfather, her son-in-law, took the place of a dutiful son and cremated her.
I am told I look like my great-grandmother and have her personality. She is a constant presence as I have dug deep into my Ayurveda toolkit for self-care and for serving others. She has meant a lot to me during this hard year as I review my priorities and legacy.
What are your top 3 Ayurvedic tips that have worked for you?
Surrender to God often, especially in the morning upon waking and at twilight.
Instead of snacking, eat a nourishing full meal of whole grains, veggies, lentils, spices, herbs, and adequate fats when hungry.
Bathe after an Abhyanga self-massage, which involves applying lots of seasonally appropriate warmed oil and letting it stay on the skin for 10-15 minutes. Almost everything starts to feel better after an Abhyanga followed by a warm bath.
What surprised you most about Ayurveda?
My experience with the spiritual healing I experienced during the Panchakarma surprised me the most. I knew of Ayurveda as a therapeutic practice for the body. My experiences with my mother’s healing teas, oils, and salves were limited to the body’s aches and pains. When I caught jaundice at 8, my mother took me to a shamanic Ayurveda healer. Because of my extreme energy and lack of discipline, my mother was convinced I was possessed by mischievous spirits. The healer chanted and prayed and cut away invisible cords from around me and made me drink a vile green herbal mixture made of neem, henna, and other mystery herbs. In my mind, I had formed the opinion that if your body got too sick, you went to an Ayurveda healer. However, during the Panchakarma healing in 2015, I felt my energy body expand and contract palpably on several occasions. I experienced the rise and release of old congealed emotions. I heard my spirit communicate with me. I tasted an exquisitely painful and pleasurable spiritual awakening. This reconnection with my spirit was unexpected.
Did you integrate it gradually or overnight for any particular reason?
Ayurveda is a vast cathedral of knowledge, one is never done with integration. There is always room to grow in knowledge, new perspectives to arrive at, new insights to gain. As time shifts and the body ages, we leave behind what doesn't serve anymore and add more tools to our self-care toolkits. Ayurveda is the study of nature itself. Our practices are a reflection of who we are and where we are at. In 2020, I have had days when a couple of rituals go a long way, and some days everything I know falls short and I dive into the Samhita classics for an answer.
Do your children/family eat an Ayurvedic diet? And if they do, do they know it’s Ayurveda, or do they just think of it as home cooking?
My daughter has been selective about her food choices from the time she was in diapers. We have gone through phases of only white, no fruit, no meat, no vegetables, only meat in the last decade. I enjoy the challenge she presents when we spend time in the kitchen together. S is going on 11, and we call our kitchen escapades, “Eat this, Gordon Ramsay!” S tells me even my Italian tastes a little Indian. She is aware of my work in the world and as my chef de partie, she gets to taste the Ayurvedic recipes I develop. Most of my recipes are regional traditional Grandma fare. It's a joy to hear her say “mm, not bad!”
What is your favourite Ayurvedic recipe or go-to ingredient?
As a trained chef from India’s cordon bleu equivalent with specialisation in French, Spanish, Thai, Indian Tandoori, and Chinese cuisines, this is a tough question to answer. I am a purist and a traditionalist. I see why traditional recipes are arranged like symphonies. I do not mess with the ingredients or process because it holds 60,000 years of human ingenuity in extracting rasa nutritive essence.
At home, I cook the simplest of rustic food with the seasonal spices of the regions I have grown up in India. It's cold and freezing in California at this time of the year, so my go-to Ayurvedic ingredient these past couple of months has been black kalonji seeds. I add them to my tea, my curries, and stir-fries.
How does Ayurveda fit into your day-to-day routines?
I am an Indian-born, California-residing immigrant. Ayurveda connects me to the women of my family, some of whom have passed on. My day begins and ends with something I saw an elder do or was taught how to do. During the restrictions of COVID this past year, when I am isolated and no longer have the support system of local friends, I have heavily relied on my memories to connect me to what I hold as precious, my legacy.
When it comes to any self-care practices, I believe in less is more. I believe in my mind’s ability to heal my body. I believe in “don’t fix what is not broken.”
I have needed extra Ayurvedic oomph to just get by another routine day of 2020 in the United States with travel restrictions, BLM protests, and the appalling mortality rates of fellow citizens.
What do you wish was easier in our society to make an Ayurvedic lifestyle more accessible?
Ayurveda would be a lot more accessible if the United States government gave it the same considerations given to Traditional Chinese Medicine. When mainstream general physicians start referring me to clients for Ayurveda diet and lifestyle management, I will know Ayurveda has arrived.
Do people around you/in your circle of friends know about Ayurveda?
Yes, my friends know me as a practitioner. They often bring me articles and news they see about Ayurveda online, especially if it's negative.
What’s the one thing you would encourage everyone to try or you think would benefit the majority of people’s health for the better?
In the West or rather in the modern world, we see our “work” as supremely important and our “life” is arranged to accommodate the demands of 10-12 hour workdays. I would like to turn that concept upside down and invite everyone to look at our “life” as the most important aspect of our day and “work” as one of the many avenues we pursue to lead a meaningful life. On a wholesome day, there should be elements of mentoring others, loving self and others, quiet introspection, bath and hygiene rituals, cooking and enjoying a great communal meal with the people or animals we live with, prayer, exercise, and "work.” Living in the Bay Area in California, it has increasingly become clear to me that working more hours to maintain a lifestyle is a zero-sum game we pay for with precious life years, health, and vitality.
Anything else you’d like to add?
The Ayurveda for healthy is passed down through grandmothers and mothers. We must each discover our own Ayurveda, the rituals of self-care and health maintenance of our race, our people, using what grows locally in abundance.
Mother Earth has offered us alternatives to Indian Ayurvedic herbs like Ashwagandha and Shatavari in every region of the world. Our focus should be on reviving this lost knowledge in the West, respecting and restoring the medicinal practices of the original people, the true stewards of that land. This is sustainable Ayurveda.
India’s Ayurveda is inextricably connected to our culture, to question or reject it is equivalent to questioning our autonomy. In the West, I see debates about the validity of Ayurveda, I do not see such abject and outright rejections of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Japanese traditional medicine, and Korean medicine in the media. There seems to be a lack of understanding that it is my culture you are questioning, making comments about, and weighing in on whether it is good or bad.
We have been practising and promoting Ayurveda to empower our future generations for millennia. The sale of services and supplements, an inevitable by-product of modernisation, is only a recent development that is not even a fraction of what Ayurveda is to us. The real test of my success as an Ayurvedic practitioner is how much of it will I pass on to the next generation.
Ayurveda is oceanic in its depth like all the other subjects that try to make sense of the natural world, math, physics, chemistry. No one human can learn it all or know it all; all practitioners have a seat at the table. Our collective wisdom is the true gift to future generations all over the world, just as the Acharya teachers from 1000 BC continue to bless us with their profound understanding of the human body.