Nostalgia - Is this kid anaemic ?
I was a special grandson for my maternal grandparents. Hence my health was of prime concern for them. I was the last of ten maternal cousins. So what made me and hence my health special ? Read on.
At various points of time, my grandma ( maternal ) grandma had taken care of my maternal cousins in varying stretches of time. Since my mom was just a few elders elder to them, the cousins were not alone with my grandma. Grandpa was stone deaf and was a silent spectator. And parents of my maternal cousins lived very close by and hence help was on hand.
My sister and I were by far the youngest grand kids of maternal grandparents. I was left in their care at my dad's native village in Kerala till class five while my parents were at Madras with my sister. This may have made them more concerned about my health with age no more on their side- they were in late mid sixties.
Transplanting themselves to new surroundings at that age should have been challenging by itself.
A frequent routine for my good health was deworming. And the laxative ? Castor oil. This was done four times an year. Feeding castor oil was a demanding exercise for my grandparents and equally strenuous on me. I was forced to lie down with my grandma pinning down my feet and hands. My grandma would feed the castor oil using gokarnam - a small kinnam ( katori ) with a spout. She would close my nose forcing me to open my mouth to breath and force the castor oil by thrusting the spout into my mouth. I had no choice but to swallow the foul tasting oil. Once she was confident I had swallowed requisite quantity, I would be “released” with an offer of small piece of gourd ( jaggiri- vellam ) as mouth freshner.
Castor oil is a powerful laxative. My diet for the day was watery than normal rice grovel and thinner than usual jeera rasam ( unappetisingly called “cheerachaar” – curative version of rasam for a sick person ! ). I had to hang around the house as my bowel had a mind of its own on such days. Things would be back to normal after a good night’s sleep.
Castor oil day was a day of abstinence of food and play.
My grandma was a tough person and sharp tongued with acidic wit. But she had a weakness. She tended to take views expressed by those in our village on my health and appearance seriously. One of those days, I was around seven years old then, a neighbour strongly felt I “appeared” anaemic. I do not remember meeting any ayurvedic practitioner. May be she called on a practitioner who provided her a “solution”.
Grandma was a untiring cook with great capacity for long drawn out effort. She, on her own, prepared arishtams ( the ayurvedic solutions )- a combo of balarishtam and dasamoolarishtam at home. Final output was three litres of mix of the two arishtams to be fed to me for 45 days. The ayurvedic solution was stored in three dark green ( Glenfiddich colour ! ) bottles. She used to feed me two measures every day. The bottles were kept on a window ledge in an inner room away from sunlight.
The arishtam concoction tasted crispy sweet. The semi darkness around storage area helped. I used to put my hand through the window bar, pull a bottle out ( carefully avoiding the first bottle from which grandma was feeding me ) and took a swig every now and then. To cut a long story short, to my grandma’s chagrin and my dismay, the three bottles ran empty in ten days ! I was shouted at and subject to some punishment over some days. Slowly peace returned and life fell back to normal routine. But my “anaemic” look continued to trouble grandma.
One of those days, we chanced to meet a proper ayurvedic practitioner. Grandma pointed at me and asked him,” What do I do to cure his anaemia ?”. The practitioner took one look at me and smiled. He said,” He is a healthy boy. Who told you he is anaemic ? He does not need any fortification !” Thus curtain came down on my arishtam binge.
But grandma would not give up easily. I was fed some lehyam ( ayurvedic paste ) every now and then. The taste of one of the lehyam still lingers in my mouth. It had a ghee base with a grainy texture. It had a horrible stinking smell but wonderful sweet taste. The allopathic concoction I was subject to ( I used to like it but never told my grandma ) for long- again with anaemia in mind - was Ferradol syrup.
Grandma had a favourite skin care cream. Long hours spent working in damp surfaces and walking barefoot tending to vegetable patches used to cause blisters in her toe webs and heels. Every night , she would apply Saibol cream ( the cream was in a totally red circular metal container like Cherry Blossom shoe polish ) liberally seated with her legs spread out on her bed.
Nearly half a century has gone by. Both Ferradal tonic and Saibal cream are still around. On the few occasions I have been to Kottakkal Arya Vaidyasala in Delhi, I noticed Balarishtam and Dasamularishtam occupied a lot of shelf space in their pharmacy
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