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In 1953, when I was 10, at our village, Muthukur, I got this nasty eye infection...from my sisters as a free gift...all circulating in schools.
In hindsight I know that it is not the conjunctivitis known as Madras Eye in the South and Jai Bangla in the East...that is supposed to be a viral infection and nothing much can be done with it except wearing goggles and passing it on through air to friends and foes alike.
The infection we got was later termed one of various cocci...strepto, staphylo, gono...pick up your choice...sorry...
But in the early 1950s these cocci were unknown and unsung and untreatable by village doctors.
The symptoms were funny. One morning we wake up but can't see the world. The eyelids get stuck to each other like with araldite. And we start crying. Father fetches a tumblerful of well-water and a piece of cloth and goes to work on the lids trying to lubricate the things. After a while they are released and we forget about it and go to school and play.
Till next morning when the drill restarts.
This continues for a week and then we are fine and forget we ever had eyes.
But I was unlucky that I got these attacks repeatedly...now strepto, now staphylo, and haemo anon...
So, after the fifth attack, my mom one morning was staring at me, and I asked her what was new. She asked me to come to the window and inspected my right eye and pronounced:
"You have a star in your eye!"
And before I could celebrate, she broke down since she had heard from her mom that stars in eyes are not to be neglected since they can lead to complications, meaning loss of sight.
And she recalled that the only remedy for stars is a couple of drops of breast milk twice a day for a week.
Unfortunately breast milk was not available at home...it was lean season.
But not to worry...that was boom time for Indian babies (those that survived). So, mom sent my didi to the nearest and next nearest neighbors to fetch some breast milk. And gave her an uggu ginne (I am sorry there is no English word for it as far as I know).
This uggu ginne is shown in the left half of the pic above...it is tough to describe it...a canonical case where a picture is worth a thousand words.
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In 1953, when I was 10, at our village, Muthukur, I got this nasty eye infection...from my sisters as a free gift...all circulating in schools.
In hindsight I know that it is not the conjunctivitis known as Madras Eye in the South and Jai Bangla in the East...that is supposed to be a viral infection and nothing much can be done with it except wearing goggles and passing it on through air to friends and foes alike.
The infection we got was later termed one of various cocci...strepto, staphylo, gono...pick up your choice...sorry...
But in the early 1950s these cocci were unknown and unsung and untreatable by village doctors.
The symptoms were funny. One morning we wake up but can't see the world. The eyelids get stuck to each other like with araldite. And we start crying. Father fetches a tumblerful of well-water and a piece of cloth and goes to work on the lids trying to lubricate the things. After a while they are released and we forget about it and go to school and play.
Till next morning when the drill restarts.
This continues for a week and then we are fine and forget we ever had eyes.
But I was unlucky that I got these attacks repeatedly...now strepto, now staphylo, and haemo anon...
So, after the fifth attack, my mom one morning was staring at me, and I asked her what was new. She asked me to come to the window and inspected my right eye and pronounced:
"You have a star in your eye!"
And before I could celebrate, she broke down since she had heard from her mom that stars in eyes are not to be neglected since they can lead to complications, meaning loss of sight.
And she recalled that the only remedy for stars is a couple of drops of breast milk twice a day for a week.
Unfortunately breast milk was not available at home...it was lean season.
But not to worry...that was boom time for Indian babies (those that survived). So, mom sent my didi to the nearest and next nearest neighbors to fetch some breast milk. And gave her an uggu ginne (I am sorry there is no English word for it as far as I know).
This uggu ginne is shown in the left half of the pic above...it is tough to describe it...a canonical case where a picture is worth a thousand words.
EVERY household in AP had one or more of these implements. They are mostly used as dispensers of medicine and vasa to newborn babies.
This vasa is again an indispensable dried stem of a plant in every household. From the second week of birth onwards, babies are administered this vasa. The dried stem is ground bit by bit and dissolved in part or whole in mom's milk (again). And it is poured into an uggu ginne (made of silver or gold depending on the baby's worth and luck). The pipe-tip of the uggu ginne is pushed into the unwilling mouth of the baby and the concoction is poured (with fingers holding the mouth open) ignoring its violent protests. This goes on for six months at least.
This vasa treatment is for a specific purpose...it is not a general tonic. It is believed in Ayurveda that regular and punctual vasa treatment will make the tongue of the baby thin (as it is called) so that the baby learns to talk as early as possible and in tongue-twisting Telugu...
It is a different matter that parents often regret the deleterious consequences of administering excessive vasa to their babes...particularly female...
But it is too late...there is no retro-treatment...Ayurveda is like that...
Anyway, it so turned out that vehement breast-milk treatment didn't work for the star in my eye.
And my mom was getting worried.
Till Father discovered that Dr. Modi was visiting Nellore with his ophthalmoscope...
That is for tomorrow...
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Aniket writes:
Dear Sir,
Today the net was down in the morning so I could not read your blog first thing and got to read it only now.
Today the net was down in the morning so I could not read your blog first thing and got to read it only now.
I don't know what it is called in English, but in Bengal we call it "jhinook".
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