SATURDAY, APRIL 20, 2024
Sneha Naik
When it comes to baby care, the name of Vishwavati Naik is synonymous with soothing massages for infants and their mothers. So popular is she that families from at least nine villages – Tivrem, Orgao, Marcel,
Cumbharjua, Amona, Volvoi, Bhoma, Adcolna – swear by her methods.
Vishwavati has been a masseuse for 45 years and says she picked up the skill quite by chance when, as a little girl, she had to tend to her two younger brothers in her native village of Mayem once her farmer parents set out for work in the mornings. “It was then that I learnt the delicate art of massaging and bathing babies,” she says while singing a folk song to relax an infant lying face down on her legs.
Subsequently married off at the tender age of 20, Vishwavati found herself bolstering her husband’s income from farming and toddy-tapping by washing clothes at people’s houses. In fact, she took up just about any odd job that came her way to look after her five children. During her spare time, she would watch with great interest how her mother-in-law, Yesu Naik, would bathe newborn babies, and ultimately decided to revisit her own abilities as a masseuse and carry the legacy forward.
The young woman started off by massaging and bathing at least six babies and their mothers each day. Looking back, she says it was this strenuous labour that is now holding her ageing body in good stead as she continues her work with the same enthusiasm and flair.
Vishwavati is, unfortunately, part of a dying traditional occupation as she herself laments that it is becoming increasingly difficult to find good masseuses for newborns and their mothers. “It is necessary for mothers to be massaged too so that they regain their strength after giving birth,” she says as she applies a paste of chickpea powder, milk cream and ragi powder on the baby that she has just finished massaging with coconut oil.
“After this little one is bathed and swaddled, it is time for him to sleep,” she explains with much affection.
As a token of her love for babies, Vishwavati gifts steel bathing tumblers to each of them on the day of their naming ceremony. “I ask the mothers to bathe their children with these tumblers so that they both can remember me,” she smiles.
She lost her daughter to cancer and one of her sons to a severe sickness, but that has not stopped the humble woman from massaging, bathing, and caring for so many little ones like she would do for her own.
