Earlier this morning, I’d presented my Indian-road-ravaged body to Dr. Surjit Dupee, Rajvilas’ Ayurvedic doctor. I’d met him yesterday evening while looking for the perfect spot to photograph the sun as it set behind a floating temple. That spot turned out to be on the spa’s roof. Dr. Dupee noticed me, grabbed some keys and told me to follow him. We passed the spa’s spacious treatment rooms and peeked into the couples’ room built round a neem tree. 

Then, single file up a narrow stairway and ducking through a small door, we came to a flat roof. The view across Rajvilas’ formal Persian gardens to its small temple floating on a lotus-lush pond backed by the long rays of the setting sun was majestic. My picture was not.

I didn’t know until this morning, when I reported to Dr. Dupee to arrange my spa appointments, who my guide had been and he didn’t know I was writing an article. It was one of the many times Rajvilas’ staff felt more like friends I hadn’t met yet than people I hadn’t tipped yet.

Dr. Dupee listened as I explained the vice-grip my muscles had formed while traversing India’s highways and byways—journeys sometimes akin to travel by diesel-fired roller coaster without hand grips. He turned me over to Mr. Saif Usmani, a pro at returning road warriors to finer fettle.

Mr. Usmani, like all the spa’s massage therapists, trained at The Banyan Tree Academy in Phuket, Thailand. Rajvilas’ Spa is managed by the much-admired Banyan Tree Group. Using his Ayurvedic training from Dr. Dupee along with his own yoga and physical education training, Mr. Usmani has developed the penultimate, pan-Asian palliative—combining deep tissue work with Yoga stretches along with rhythmic Ayurvedic movements.

First stop, however, is the shower—a smooth-cool-white-marble steam bath within my own airy treatment room. The tingling scent of eucalyptus wafts on the moist air as I’m simultaneously warmed by the steam and cooled by the marble against my skin. Muscular vice-like grip ratchets down to mere strangle-hold.

Mr. Usmani, always careful to maintain my sheet-covered modesty, has me lay face down on the cushioned massage table. He slathers Euphoria, a curry of seven essential oils, on my back and legs. Then he begins a sublimely choreographed dance. Moving rhythmically, he alternates between a potent massage and sliding my appendages into yoga postures. Muscles stretch, stress subsides and I subside into a rhythmic bliss. I experience several of those satisfying ‘gives,’ like a too-tight rubber band pops, easing whole muscle groups into quiescence.

Finally, shoulders resting inches below their original hunch, I ooze over to the roses. Hundreds of rose-pink petals put me in mind of the up-side of being confined to a Rajput’s harem. Lolling about till my fingers wrinkle, I drift towards my marble showers…rose petals dribbling.