People say: “The best way to predict a
future is to create it”. I probably knew it back then when I was a three year
old. And henceforth, I tried and created as many avenues for me as possible: so
that my future prediction would be just as easy (I do hope that you guys don’t
mistake me to be some kind of a future predicting kid prodigy for I’m still
confused with what I’ve become and what I’d still want to become). But back then
probably I knew that ointments, balms and creams would later form an integral
part of my life.
I used to be a pampered, covered –in- rose-
petals kind of a delicate child. Cough and cold were my two “go-to” diseases. I
would get affected by either at least 13 times in 12 months.
“That’s a common problem”, my pediatrician
would say, “It is allowing her immune system to grow better”
My immune system was fighting- that much I
realized later, but whether it was improving or not is a query that still
persists.
And of course, if cough and cold decided to
take a month off, to still make my day worse, I would either trip and scar my
knees or probably just bang my head on the edge of a table and grow a globular
swelling on my forehead. Hence grew my
obsession with band aids. But that’s a different story altogether. Right now I’m
more focused on another similar episode of fever with cold.
It was the month of July, a week after my
second birthday. I was down with a 100F. Maybe because I knew the enchanted upshots
of antipyretics or because I was too reluctant to fuss, I was an obedient
patient who would gulp down her dose of Paracetamol without my mom dad having
to shove the syrup in my mouth. But for some reasons, I did not take my
medicine that day.
A friend of dad’s showed up in the evening.
While my parents chatted with our guest, my nanny dressed me up in an orange coloured,
embroidered cotton kurta and pyjamas. She then carried me to the living room
and placed me on the dining table which was at the far end of the room. That was
her “ninja technique” of eavesdropping any conversation: she would make me sit
there like I was some rare magnum-opus and pretend to play with me while I
played with myself and she had her ears (not eyes) more towards the end where
the sofas were placed and the guests sat.
We carried out the same tradition that day.
But what she did not notice was that instead of playing with my yellow teddy
bear, I held a tub of Vicks and was now opening the lid. She was reluctant. She
let me play on my own, while she drowned in the extracts of the juicy topics
that the guests were discussing. Sometimes, she would place her hand on my
forehead, yet she did not notice that I was smearing the Vapourub on my body,
part by part starting with the neck. By the time the guests were brought over
to the dining area for dinner, I had already emptied the entire bottle and my
body now ponged of menthol.
The bottle being empty, I had nothing more
to play with so I dozed off. The next morning, I was covered in sweat with the
oily kurta sticking to my body. My whole body reeked like those medicinal cough
syrups. But my fever was gone. There was no sign of cough or cold. It was as if
the fever never occurred. Mom and dad were shocked. But I wasn’t. I just got a
new toy to play with: Vicks Vaporub. Who cared if it magically made my fever go
away overnight?
Till today, this serendipity of mine rouses
the same amount of laughter as it did back then. On the other hand, I wonder
how I didn’t end up smearing the ointment on my eyes or gulping it down like a
syrup. That would have been another piece of idiocy to laugh at.
