Head Massage

For Yom Kippur Anna Oppenheim traveled from Vadodra to Ahmedebad for services at the synagogue here. Overwhelmed by this new city and my very raw loneliness, I was really excited to see her. “I will meet you at the bus station and we can find the synagogue from there, together.” Unsure of traffic congestion, where I was going, or where anything is in this city, I had no idea how long it would take for her bus to arrive or for me to get to the bus station. I decided to leave with plenty of time and while I was wobbling along in a rickshaw to the bus station a text message told me that I had smoothly left way too early – she wasn’t scheduled (and schedules rarely run on schedule) to arrive for 1.5 hours. Sweating like a mad man on this cool 90 degree day, already in transit I figured I was best to keep going, grab a coffee and read for a while. The time would fly by. Silly Aaron, Trix are for kids.

The bus station stands at a sweltering hot intersection where it is rusting, crowded, and putrid. No coffee. No nothing. A couple of fruit sellers, kiosks, and countless taxis. With few other options I decided to go for a walk to pass the time. Because it is in the old part of the city, the bus station is surrounded mostly by factories and crumbling 6-story apartment buildings. There isn’t must to see and in the heat that is no such thing has a leisurely stroll so I calmly park under the shade of a nice tree and revel in the super modern form of entertainment popular on Nokia phones: Snake II. Soon enough two boys chat me up, and we hack our way through a conversation. It only really gets as far as me telling them that I am from U.S. Before I know it, the three of us are surprised by an older man, roughly 60, telling us he is Bruce Lee.

After Mr. Lee kindly makes our acquaintance, he backs up a little and starts to show us some of the latest, most lethal karate combos. I really have no idea what is going on but am totally amused and tell him that he is SICK! He loved it, prompted by my enthusiasm and energetic response to dice the air something fierce. What a lame organic compound, it didn’t stand a change. With the air properly annihilated he sat down next to me. We talked about everything and nothing. Interrupting me mid sentence while I was trying to explain what I am doing in Ahmedebad sitting on the side of the road under a tree by myself, he told me he is a masseuse. I laughed. Bruce Lee had just become a massage therapist.

Bait, line, and sinker, I bit the bait. I don’t know what I said, or how “No, thank you, I’m fine, I really don’t need a head massage, but that is quite kind of you to offer,” was misheard as a ‘yes’ but I sat there and watched him walk into a nearby shop and return with a packet of hair oil with Shah Rukh Khan’s photo on it. Casually, with the airs of normalcy common between two old friends, he flicked his shoes aside and straddled me, sitting on the top part of the bench against which my back was resting, his knees on the outside of my shoulders like we were getting ready for a chicken fight.

And, sure enough, some warm goo splattered all over my head and Bruce started to massage my head, still on the side of the road, still under the tree. Everyone who passed reacted: giggles, full-on laughs, looks of absolute confusion, nods saying: “That’s right, give that boy a head massage.” The entire time I grinned from ear to ear, just waiting for Anna or anyone to call so that I could tell them what was going on.