Ang mardan : Maalishwalas of chowpatty

maalishwalas or masseurs of Mumbai

Long before 'massage' as a form of treatment became popular due to growth of Health centers in Mumbai, there were two types of massagers : massage offered by bhaiyyas on the streets of Mumbai or Chowpatty and then there were ( and they are still there) those Massage Centers , where massage was for namesake only but they would offer many value added services. The second type of massage centers still make their presence felt in the classified section of all major & minor newspapers claiming to offer ‘fresh stock’ and we know that the girls there are train in offering services more than just a plain massage.

My mind goes back to those male masseurs who used to wander around the streets and by lanes of Mumbai-mostly in South Mumbai during evening/night. They would offer head massage or body massage. In head massage they would put strong smeling oil and would massage your head vigourously. I quite vividly remember those days when we would get a head massage occasionally, down below our chawls. He would do a ‘chop’ on your head with his fists, ‘pull’ our ears to make a ‘click’ sound, ‘break’ our neck and then do knuckles, and finally ‘beating’ our back.

This type of massage, I believe, is quite different from the massage that you get in modern Health clubs, where it is a sort of soothing massage with an aim to relax muscles (that’s what people say) whereas the massage that I have been talking about is a hard massage given by hard-strokes and you would derive pleasure out of pain.

There were masseurs operating at Chowpatty offering the same hard massage but they must have been different. Much later, with the advent of the internet, we have learnt more about these people. But we would hear, with interest, from the older boys, that these male masseurs at Chowpatty would offer you to massage private parts also. And we were thrilled, horrified and ashamed, all together.