My India 10 - 1950-55

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As far as therapy went, our Village embraced a robust Pragmatism...the end and antithesis of all -isms.

Just so. When one is troubled by a splitting headache, cure comes first and only then 'faith'.

Truly multicultural outlook as far as medicine goes.

[Joke: A Villager goes to town and finds the Name-Plate: Dr. Shyam. Enters and asks Dr Shyam a cure for his bellyache. Upon which Shyam shamefacedly confesses he is a Doctor of Philosophy. Undeterred, our Villager declares that he would like to try it too, if it helps, at an affordable price]

Here is a listing of the concoction of therapies we had to endure in the desperate attempts of our parents to see us through, for better or worse:

1. Home Remedies: These are not only remedial but also preventive, palliative and fictional.

The most hated thing on which we were tenaciously brought up from Day 1 of our sojourn was the nasty Castor Oil. People just went crazy about its wellness. It is supposed to be not only purgatorial, but also spiritual; its appalling odor, color, texture, taste and outlook prepares one for the serious business of Life.

An ounce or two every other week was compulsory. Taken in the early morning on empty stomach, it is sure to spoil at least the first half of a Saturday.

Apart from frequent runs to the loo, it had the tragic effect of becoming addictive. I have known Justices of the High Court, otherwise wise, who can't live without a spoon in the morning to start their Day's Judgments. Imagine an innocent accused on a Day of his Fateful Trial, when the Oil went into the Black Market all of a sudden!

However, as in all our home remedies, I find that the West has discovered lately the ineffable virtues of our Castor Oil, and is on the point of Patenting them as her own IPR: it appears that, while their allopathic drugs can kill worms, bacilli, amoeba, and all other God's own Lifelines, they are just unable to DESTROY their eggs, cysts, larvae and such other incipient occupants of our intestinal homelands. So much so that after a month or so, the newer generation erupts with a vengeance and the Battle of the Belly joined again, rather one-sidedly.

Apparently, our home-made Castor Oil can wipe out the entire lineage for generations to come like Aswathama tried to do to the Pandavas.

My mom says frying the Castor seeds to the right temperature at the right rate is an art known only to a few in our Village. Overdo it or underdo it just a wee bit and the germs will peep in again and mock their landlords.

But the mystery she never explained was that if it was so powerful, why take it every other week? One shot should do. But then she will embark on Preventive Medicinal aspects which only geneticists of current science can understand....the various strains, mutations and stuff.

All in all Castor Oil has been a curse on us till we fled the Village to the Modern Towns.

How I wished that Castor Oil were as sweet as honey and did the trick by just one visit to the loo. But then we were also being trained to face the unpleasant worldly inequities,I guess.

By the way, it worked the other way too: whatever was good for the tongue was supposed to be inherently bad for the stomach. This is a stated and practiced rule, though not proven.

For instance, fried aloo is very good to taste, oh, no doubt about it; chips and all that, but we used to get only the inedible boiled potatoes in our food. Ice Cream is swell, but we got only boiled milk with cream removed, which goes to make curds, not as such, but churned into weak buttermilk.

Then comes neem : In all its various allotropic modifications like leaves, buds, flowers, fruit, bark, oil, shade etc, neem is supposed to be good for every type of nuisance.

Unlike Castor Oil, however, one can easily acquire a cultivated taste for the products of the neem tree. Without doubt, neem grows on one. Every house in the Village has one neem tree in its front-yard or access to one. It is a tree one gets fond of. Somehow, its shade is soothing to the system.

When I left Village, and went to various towns and cities, I missed the neem tree.

At KGP, once I visited the majestic Railway Hospital. And found in front of its Casualty Ward, a whole dozen huge big neem trees in a semicircular row with benches beneath them to rest. I was so happy that I missed no chance of making visits to the BNR Hospital, whenever a friend of mine was admitted: As Maugham said in his Moon and Sixpence, I was rather pining for excuses for such friendly visits.

Betel Leaf was also remedial, not only for its juice as a digestive, but also as an external application for stomach ache. Just warm the leaf and apply it near the navel, wrong side up, and it acts as a panacea. Let's no talk about Tobacco for toothache, since we had none.

Haldi, or turmeric is a well-known bactericidal: Americans are fighting for its IPR. All women of all ages used it as an applications in paste form to their bodies and faces. It is supposed to be great for preventing skin diseases as well as toning up the skin texture. But I find the turmeric powder bought from the local market infested with crawling 'wormicles'...I can't explain why...maybe adulterated.

Don't forget Tulsi (Basil). Every house had a pot in which a Tulsi plant is compulsorily grwon; and worshiped. Note that the Bio-IT Firm in which my son is a dashing PM is named "Ocimum Biosolutions". Apparently Ocimum is the Lamarckin or some such botanical name for the plant. Indeed the owners of the Firm, our ex-student couple from IIT KGP Physics Class of maybe 1995, are planning a Building of their own which is architecturally just like a Tulsi Plant in its Plan and Elevation.

Best of all, for skin infections, is the Mustard Oil. I used to laugh at it, thinking of the pervading odor of mustard oil in our Faculty Hostel in which several poor fish were deep fried day in and day out. But I suffered from a skin infection around the button which refused to go away despite all allopathic ointments including several combinations of Cortisones. And was reconciled to live and die with the rather juicy and itchy shame. Then, one day, my son's Hindi Tutor, Mishrajee, at KGP looked at my son's resistant pimple on his face, brought out a vial of Antibactrin from his pocket and asked for a bit of cotton and applied it. My son's pimple shriveled and vanished within 12 hours. And my son asked me to try it. I said ok. Just one miraculous application of the rather warm thing, and I am cured of it permanently, at least for the last 20 years. And I found that its ingredients are: Mustard Oil and Tulsi juice.

No doubt the poor fish have no CHANCE!


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