The
one thing that is viewed with contempt
in my household is sickness in any form! When I come back from school with
burning eyes and the whole body slumping
to the ground unable to carry the yellow
cloth school bag and the heavy brass tiffin box, aching for the much needed
solace, my father, with the badminton
racket in hand (a great believer in outdoor activities!!!) would say " Go
play for some time.... you will be fine." Angrily throwing my bag I would
curl myself at the corner of the room .
But this indication would not shake him to utter a few comforting words. With a
happy tune on his lips, and a thoughtless utterance " You will be ok
before I come back" he would ride off in his bicycle for a game or two
with his gang! Mother who was always
busy would come to me with concern with the routine question "Did you hurt
yourself in the school?" If I nodded to indicate 'no' the next will be a
more sensitive one hurting your
conscience "Did anyone buy you the stick ice?" I would shake my head vehemently looking a bit hurt
that mother should ask such a question bordering disobedience to one of her many commandments.
You
may wonder why the question was that someone should buy rather than "Did
you buy a stick ice?"
"The
no money with the children" was one of her prime policy in our household.
She would discourage the guests coming home from giving cash gifts to the
children. But if some insistent guest thrusts the cash with us " the immediate surrender of the
same" was the prevailing unwritten rule!
Coming back to our main story after this
initial interrogation the great
specialist (of course my mother) would
begin her in-depth analysis ! With her helping hand she would make me to stand up and touch my forehead and say "Yes...... the fever is high....." After this pronouncement I would
automatically lift my blouse to show my tummy for the next scrutiny. She would
slowly go through each segment to identify any spot in the region.....This test is done to make sure that I didn't have
measles or chicken pox...... Any one of this starts with an indigestive
stomach. Satisfied and thanking God that it was neither of those contagious
variety lest it spread to the other children she would ask me to lie down and
provide the mat a pillow and a bed sheet and sleep till she prepared her tested
and proven herbal concoction..... She
had the pending duty of a night meal too!
The
only concession during this phase was that you were not asked to participate in
the hour long night prayers." Lie down and listen piously." would be
the generic command
On ordinary times where a strict vigil over
the younger siblings was the responsibility of the elder ones who engaged
themselves in this duty with a dictatorial vehemence!
The
herbal medicine is the colour of a rainbow. a conglomeration of odd tastes heavily tilting (like the
violet shade) towards bitterness . An
unavoidable vomiting would result in a hard slap since the preparation in itself
was a time consuming tedious process.
The
belief system that an empty stomach is the primal point of a curative
process made sure that no food was available for the patient except for a
twice cooked thin watery rice porridge once a day. Rest of the day was
literally filled with the boiled water in the wood burnt stove with its smoky
smell which was another punishment for
the sick person. Added to that as his
contribution to curative process my dad would annoy you with a stern statement
" Yes my dear girl, you can go to school tomorrow isn't it? "On the
whole the system staunchly stood like the formidable Goliath against the
sickness in the family!
There
is a saying in Tamil that any feast or any medicine should not last beyond
three days. If the herbal decoction consumed for three days wouldn't prove to
be effective the next option was to go
the doctor for allopathic medicine.
Our
doctor was not a specialist in any field of medicine. In fact he was not even
an MBBS! He held some licence to practice medicine. This dark, plump five foot man with a slight filarial swelling
in one leg wearing white dhoti and
shirt with an angavasthiram (A
pristine creamy white silk towel with gold edging and folded like a fan) was
indeed like a majestic king for us with his greatest gift of a big smile and a
healing touch! His clinic always overflowed. Even today I can relish his smile with all his teeth
placed at a distance from each other. Since he was our distant relative he
fondly called him thatha (grandpa)!
Early
in the morning he used to come to a clinic two street away from ours. As the
bullock cart turned to our street we could make out that theta's vehicle was
going by the distinct jingling sound of the bells of the bullock. If anyone of
us was standing outside he would give his big smile and wave his hand. If he
was not in a hurry he would ask the cart driver to stop the vehicle. This was a
big excitement for us.. As he came inside the house and if we were standing half dressed in the process
of getting ready to school, we would rush inside to put on a dress. All of us
including mum and dad would kneel in front of him to get his blessings. He
would enquire about our studies and made us feel at home without going into the
silly details like marks, rank, et,. which is today's fashion. On ordinary days,
he was too busy to eat but when he came home during Xmas season he would enjoy
eating amma’s ghee laddus and praise the taste sky high!
I am
not very sure why we didn’t visit his clinic which was close by to our house.
May be that was someone else’s clinic where he was working for some hours every day. Whenever we became
extremely sick and incurable by mother’s home made concoctions thatha’s
clinic was the last resort. His clinic
was at the other end of our busy town . As we were very young father would make
us sit at the back seat of his Hercules cycle and fold our legs and tie them up
lightly with a towel lest we fall asleep and tumble down on the road.
A
visit to thatha’s clinic always carried a mixed feeling. While the boiling
injection needles in a basin (That was the time when disposable injection
needles were unknown and Theo’s needle industry at Ooty was doing a roaring
business.) and the exhibits of big bottles of liquid medicine in a row and the
compounder seriously powdering the pills in a big pestle and mortar would
terrorise you creating fertile goose
pimples all through the system. The big smile of thatha pacified you and his
sprawling palatial house ( our house can easily fit in a corner) excited you!!
"Please
go inside and say hi to ammachi." he would say
His wife whom we called ammachi with her soft
spoken affectionate nature was a person God had rightly chosen for thatha. She
would welcome us with a cute smile and
Ovaltine an elite drink unavailable
in our house!
As the crowd got leaner we go into the clinic.
Thatha would examine me with his stethoscope "Can I give you an
injection....." He would say. With
the speed of light I hide myself behind father.
"I
was joking my dear, come here" he would beckon me and call the compounder
and instruct him about the medicine which invariably was a liquid which we
called 'mixture'. We bade good bye to thatha without paying a
fee which was the norm!
Though
thatha's medicine was not bitter as
mother's herbal one it had a very bad taste. But mother would make sure
that we swallowed the dose indicated by a paper marker on the medicine bottle.
With three doses the sickness story
should come to an end and it was back to
the routine!
I want to
end this sick story on a pleasant note. We were in Pondicherry for a
wedding. Wandering along through the various phases of life I lost touch with the olden golden days and was pleasantly
surprised when a young man who recognised me and introduced himself as the
grandson of my doctor (thatha) and his
wife and the little son standing nearby smiled at us. It was lunch time and was a buffet. After all
of us settle down at a table I continued
to reminisce about our dear doctor thatha.....
"Your
boy is missing..."I tell them
But
he was coming from the buffet spread holding two bowls of soup in his hands!
"Poor
boy...... should be very hungry....."
"This
is for you both....." he smilingly placed the bowls in front of us both.
I
was taken aback......what am I witnessing now....? Is it a miracle....?!! The biggest smile of dear old doctor (thatha)
was beaming in front of my eyes!
And
I lost control of myself.......! I hugged the darling boy!!
