#016 MY FIRST CHILDHOOD MEMORY

I should have written something truly personal, because this is an autobiographical blog.

My first childhood experience drawn from the memory should have been, chronologically, the first post at this blog.

I shall fulfil the need now.

I am born in 1951. My birth year is 1950 as per school records. Space and time both are infinite. Hence, one year will not make any difference.

My first childhood memory relates to 1955. My parents left me at my paternal grand father's home. My grand mother went to a few far off places to attend weddings of relatives. This was for a month. The picture in my memory shows that I was suffering from eczema or some abscesses on both the palms of mine. Our village did not have any electric connection. The whole village used to turn dark soon after sunset particularly during the second fortnight of the lunar month.

There were no doctors of the modern medicine in our village. My grand father resorted to a folk remedy. He used to dress my both hands with datura leaves (thorn apple) and buffalo dung. He used to bind my hands with a long bandage, so as to prevent the dung and the leaves falling from my palms while I was asleep. Sleep became arduous. There were no toilets. There used to be an abandoned land of about one acre in front of our house. The land was used by the villagers as open toilets. Decaying human faecus in the land used to emit foul smell, day and night. I had to wake up my grand father for help using my bandaged hands, tapping him on his back and tilting him, so that he could tell me how I should go to the open land for toilet. I was afraid of snakes. I used to resist my urge to excrete and urinate, but that was very difficult on some days. This lasted for one month, with the daily dressing of datura and the cattle dung. There were no telephones to communicate to grand mother to return early. Postal facilities were also very poor at the places of her visit. There were no post offices or postmen. Consequently, she took her own time to return, believing that everything was going on well.

Finally, how I was cured of the abscesses on my palms, was a mistory.