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Last night I was at our street-corner medical shop. And there was this customer asking for a thermometer.
Santosh, our efficient shopkeeper, immediately fetched 4 brands of the thing out of his rack. Ranging from the good old eminently breakable glass instrument to the latest digital one with a watch battery inside it. And the customer was confused and at a loss...the perils of choice. I am sure he would have liked to be shown only one feverish specimen. And he haggled...the price ranged between Rs 100 and Rs 200. And he finally left the shop empty-handed to the chagrin of Santosh...he must have gone home to consult his sick wife.
This threw me back to my school years at Muthukur when Father had his prize possession of the only brand in the market...maybe Hicks. And he would guard it like his gold ring (dowry).
It took many months for me to get to know how to read it. Father would ask me to turn the thing round and round till I saw the silver thread of mercury. Fever was less of a punishment.
When I was delirious, Father didn't dare insert the damn thing into my mouth lest I should bite it and die of mercury poisoning. He would lift my arm and insert the bulb into my armpit and close it and watch his wrist watch till it was all of one minute. And one minute is a long while when you are sick as well as healthy. And he would announce: 99 deg F (F for Fahrenheit). And before I rejoiced that it was nothing, he would announce that one should add a whole degree to the reading in the armpit to get the correct mouth-reading.
And the sick diet would take over.
Once when my MD Uncle was visiting us and I fell ill, he asked Father to fetch his thermometer. And Father looked contrite since he broke it a week ago...good for me that it didn't break in my hands. And asked my didi to go to the neighbor's house and fetch theirs. And Uncle looked at it and laughed saying:
"Oh, this is a rectal thermometer...it has a round bulb instead of a long one"
And asked me if I would turn turtle...which I refused to do. He let it go at that and took my pulse and said I had a high enough fever. And let it out that one has to subtract one degree to get the correct reading from the rectal one...I guess the rectal thing is used for cows.
As long as the temperature stayed above normal, there was no hope of any solid diet.They gave me barley water to drink thrice a day. When I complained that I was sick of barley water, they gave me sago water...you know the insipid saboo daanaa thing. And when I asked for a little sugar, they said sugar is not good for digestion and gave me a bite of black molasses (gud) as an afterthought.
Gud...my foot!
When at last the temperature touched normal (98.4 deg F), shown by an arrow on the glass, they gave me what was called 'puna:paakam'. It means literally 'twice-boiled' rice. That is, they would all have nicely cooked rice and would reboil the leftovers for my exclusive consumption...it looked like tooth paste and tasted worse.
And to go with it, they gave me rasam...a ghastly concoction that had nothing but boiled tamarind (imli) water with super-added rasam powder that was home made and had some dhaniya, jeera, pepper and half a sliver of galic. It tasted awful and, when I cried, they gave me a piece of lemon pickle. Lemon pickle comes in three varieties:
1. Pure sun-dried lemon lobes without any masala (this is the sickly thing)
2. Lemon with masala (this is for healthy adults)
3. Thick bitter lime pickle (fit for goats and convalescents)
I would look at my didi's plate full of dal, sabji and sambar and cry...she took pity on me and, on the sly, would hand me a couple of bits of ladyfingers that tasted like heaven.
Much later when I was in my school final and fell ill, our Muthukur market had loaves of bread imported from Nellore...they looked ghastly.
Not the sliced Milk Bread nor the Sandwich Bread nor the Whole Wheat Bread nor the Brown Bread...just Bread...stop.
And there were no toasters, and frying was unhealthy for a sick kid. So I was asked to pick pieces from the raw thing and dip them in watered sugar-free milk and chew.
No wonder I grew up grumpy as the devil as Indra put it...
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Last night I was at our street-corner medical shop. And there was this customer asking for a thermometer.
Santosh, our efficient shopkeeper, immediately fetched 4 brands of the thing out of his rack. Ranging from the good old eminently breakable glass instrument to the latest digital one with a watch battery inside it. And the customer was confused and at a loss...the perils of choice. I am sure he would have liked to be shown only one feverish specimen. And he haggled...the price ranged between Rs 100 and Rs 200. And he finally left the shop empty-handed to the chagrin of Santosh...he must have gone home to consult his sick wife.
This threw me back to my school years at Muthukur when Father had his prize possession of the only brand in the market...maybe Hicks. And he would guard it like his gold ring (dowry).
It took many months for me to get to know how to read it. Father would ask me to turn the thing round and round till I saw the silver thread of mercury. Fever was less of a punishment.
When I was delirious, Father didn't dare insert the damn thing into my mouth lest I should bite it and die of mercury poisoning. He would lift my arm and insert the bulb into my armpit and close it and watch his wrist watch till it was all of one minute. And one minute is a long while when you are sick as well as healthy. And he would announce: 99 deg F (F for Fahrenheit). And before I rejoiced that it was nothing, he would announce that one should add a whole degree to the reading in the armpit to get the correct mouth-reading.
And the sick diet would take over.
Once when my MD Uncle was visiting us and I fell ill, he asked Father to fetch his thermometer. And Father looked contrite since he broke it a week ago...good for me that it didn't break in my hands. And asked my didi to go to the neighbor's house and fetch theirs. And Uncle looked at it and laughed saying:
"Oh, this is a rectal thermometer...it has a round bulb instead of a long one"
And asked me if I would turn turtle...which I refused to do. He let it go at that and took my pulse and said I had a high enough fever. And let it out that one has to subtract one degree to get the correct reading from the rectal one...I guess the rectal thing is used for cows.
As long as the temperature stayed above normal, there was no hope of any solid diet.They gave me barley water to drink thrice a day. When I complained that I was sick of barley water, they gave me sago water...you know the insipid saboo daanaa thing. And when I asked for a little sugar, they said sugar is not good for digestion and gave me a bite of black molasses (gud) as an afterthought.
Gud...my foot!
When at last the temperature touched normal (98.4 deg F), shown by an arrow on the glass, they gave me what was called 'puna:paakam'. It means literally 'twice-boiled' rice. That is, they would all have nicely cooked rice and would reboil the leftovers for my exclusive consumption...it looked like tooth paste and tasted worse.
And to go with it, they gave me rasam...a ghastly concoction that had nothing but boiled tamarind (imli) water with super-added rasam powder that was home made and had some dhaniya, jeera, pepper and half a sliver of galic. It tasted awful and, when I cried, they gave me a piece of lemon pickle. Lemon pickle comes in three varieties:
1. Pure sun-dried lemon lobes without any masala (this is the sickly thing)
2. Lemon with masala (this is for healthy adults)
3. Thick bitter lime pickle (fit for goats and convalescents)
I would look at my didi's plate full of dal, sabji and sambar and cry...she took pity on me and, on the sly, would hand me a couple of bits of ladyfingers that tasted like heaven.
Much later when I was in my school final and fell ill, our Muthukur market had loaves of bread imported from Nellore...they looked ghastly.
Not the sliced Milk Bread nor the Sandwich Bread nor the Whole Wheat Bread nor the Brown Bread...just Bread...stop.
And there were no toasters, and frying was unhealthy for a sick kid. So I was asked to pick pieces from the raw thing and dip them in watered sugar-free milk and chew.
No wonder I grew up grumpy as the devil as Indra put it...
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