Bonus material - I've had three massages here at the Aman*.  It probably seems incredibly indulgent and in some regards it is, but it still works out more reasonably than the chiropractor would in Virginia and I am still trying to work through my post snow shovelling shoulder injury of last winter.  Everyone has a different diagnosis - the orthopedic surgeon, the chiropractor, the trainers in the gym, the massage therapist. :)  Interestingly the surgeon and the trainers have a similar take while the chiropractor and massage therapist seem to basically agree.:)

My favourite therapist is a lovely, tiny Christian woman from Mizoram.  (I'll call her Rebecca.) I had never heard of Mizoram (granted statehood in 1986).  It is one of those tiny Indian states on the east side of Bangladesh, on the border with Burma.  My 2006 children's atlas of India tells me that Mizoram has 22 towns and 699 inhabited villages, of which 663 are electrified. The atlas also states that the population of Mizoram was 891,058, while today Wikipedia postulates 888,573.  It is easy to see why young people might be leaving to find more opportunities.  It must be quite beautiful and tough to access. It takes about 2 1/2 days to make the journey from Delhi to this lady's home town.  . 

Rebecca is a really skilled therapist.  She is really good, both technically, and psychologically.  She is able to distract from the discomfort of some of the manipulation with a stream of fascinating information.  She has worked at the best hotels in New Delhi and for all kinds of people.  Here are a couple of nuggets I gleaned.

Mizoram is a mainly Christian state because Welsh Baptist missionaries came in 1894.

Our 5 star hotel has a canteen which serves everyone from window washer to the General Manager (GM).  Everyone gets the same food from the same kitchen.

Every woman whose shift ends after dark is driven home to her door by one of the hotel's drivers and seen into her building.  This policy seems the same for all the good hotels, but Aman people seem to go the extra mile by seeing the women into their buildings.

The former GM of the Taj Mahal hotel in Delhi (where Rebecca used to work) started off working as a steward in the hotel and worked his way up to GM at the Taj and is now #3 for the whole Taj group of hotels.

The spa staff of this hotel number about 29. 6 attendants (managing the changing rooms) and 3 beauticians (can only guess what they do), a few managerial and secretarial positions, but the vast majority massage therapists.  At times all the facilities are booked.

The outgoing GM of the Aman (a Scotsman) was remarkable because he would carry luggage if all the other staff were occupied when a guest needed help. [I take it that an Indian GM wouldn't dream of confusing roles/status in this manner.]  The incoming GM is a tall distinguished elderly Indian.  He has a tough act to follow.

We've now had opportunity to have longer conversations with several staff members, housekeeping and dining staff as well as the lobby and reception stewards and many speak 3 or 4 languages and have degrees in hotel management or engineering. 

*Aman: from an exhibit in the National Museum in Dhaka I found out that in some parts of Bangladesh they harvest three crops from the same fields.  The first major crop is the 'aman.'