62 Illnesses
The rains when they come are something of a mixed blessing – on the one hand they bring in their wake a general cooling of the temperature to something like a bearable level, and they provide water both for washing and drinking, besides inaugurating the planting season. On the other hand crops are not the only things that come to life at this time, also disease-bearing insects multiply rapidly and are well-nigh impossible to avoid. Mosquitoes are of course the number one culprit in this regard and are found to be carriers of both malaria and typhoid as well as filaria and viral diseases. Malaria is endemic in this area, though until this past year those living in the wood have been free of it. This year it was rife, and for the third time since I’ve been in the East I contracted the disease again. As its symptoms are quite clear – shivering, fever, headaches, and so on – it is remarkable that for some reason I didn’t realise at first what had happened. Perhaps the fact that it came while I was still recovering from the exhaustion of the hot season had something to do with it, anyway it was a number of days before I managed to get to a doctor – who took just one look to diagnose the problem.
The malaria in these parts is becoming resistant to chloroquine, the normal drug used to combat it, so I was put on a course of sulfadoxine, a heavy drug with an equally heavy dosage. By accident the nurse administering the treatment gave an initial massive overdose, nearly two grams all at one go. We discovered the mistake too late, and I lay on the bed all night with my skin crawling from the effect, anxiously waiting to see what the outcome would be. Fortunately I survived, and it must be said that the malaria did not, so within a few days I was able to return to my kutir. However diseases like malaria have a generally deleterious effect on the whole system, and it was a good few weeks before I’d got my strength back, but before then another problem had arisen.
There is a bird
that now is heard
he certainly is a crier
But what he cries
is not quite clear
depending ’pon the listener:
maybe “Pee-kahan?”
“Where is my love?”
the Hindi speaker thinks so
or “Paos-ala,”
“Now rain will come,”
we truly, truly hope so
To English ear
this bird is heard
to shout and scream “Brainfever.”
Thus each reflects
his own concern:
to pine, to thirst, to suffer.
It seems that every year there is a new plague in this area: one year it was a creature known as a blister bug, which, if one brushed it aside – even accidentally – would release an acid onto the skin surface, which resulted in a large blister being formed. Another year it was a caterpillar which left a hundred needle-like spikes in the skin, and everyone had to be picked out, the trouble being that they were almost invisible to the naked eye. This year it was fleas, terrible creatures, one bite leading to persistent and quite furious itching, which cannot be resisted, even though to scratch it is to spread the poison and increase the problem. This flea likes the cool dark walls of the kutir, which happen to be mud covered, providing an almost perfect camouflage for his similarly-coloured body. He is so tiny that he can apparently get in through the holes of a mosquito net, and as he comes alive especially at nighttime, I was kept awake for hours on end night after night trying to detect and eject this impossibly small, and infuriatingly persistent fellow.
Having one’s sleep pattern interrupted every night was, needless to say, rather tiring, but especially so as I was still recovering from the bout of malaria. The locals said the flea would go away if we got a proper rain, but the rain came and went, and still the flea was happily biting away, and the long wait between rains was enough to try anyone’s patience, and the little pest didn’t seem to be bothered by the rain anyway, and even though I improved clothes and net management I was still being bitten, and my generally poor health situation was now in its third month.