A radiating pain down the shoulder to the elbow to the hip led to Dr Chirag Joisher in Ghatkopar. This came after a year of physiotherapy which helped immensely, but not completely. In a few months, the pain changed lines to become pins and needles in the left elbow. Chiropractoric adjustment, with it’s satisfying crack and [apparent] instant relief, called to me as blue ice cream would in a stack of vanilla and chocolate.

At rhetorical clinic, first, a female physiotherapist takes a picture [on my phone] of my undressed back, and reads the diagnosis to me: Ears, shoulders and elbows are not level, a flesh fold on the right one fold on my right is deeper than the other, and right hip is higher. My spine is wonky, or as doctors say, has scoliosis, which is why my right traps have sinewed into ropes, squeezing the nerves to my hand to the point that I can’t lift a glass of water on some days. This despite regular, intense yoga for many many years.