My Days in My Years
 Chapter 1

I attempted to write my story. Not once. Several times. Not that I thought that I have some thing substantial to tell the people. Nor do I think, whatever I reveal will be read with interest by the readers. This story or a similar story can be retold by millions. So this story is the story of a legion and  any one can say that its theirs or similar to that of theirs. Every time I started writing the story, after a few sentences, inertia took over me and that was the end. This time I  sincerely hope I would be getting over that force that hold me back.

I  really do not know where I should start. Some people claim that they can recall whatever happened from their tender age. Of course what is  tender age can be a debatable point. Is it three years, four years or anything less than ten years. I imagine that I cannot imagine anything that had happened in my life at a tender age . Or the best way to put is that I cannot relate my age to the sequence of things that had happened in my life.
 Once i remember - I do not know what age-may be at the age of three or four, I climbed on a slanting mango tree which was just behind our kitchen. I only remember that I fell down. When I regained consciousness, I could see my mother crying and my siblings joining her. My father took me to a person, who practiced traditional  treatment for  setting broken bones. He was in fact was our closest neighbor. Only a katcha fencing demarcated our landmass. My father carried me in his shoulders. I was seated in a bench in the courtyard of his kitchen. The gentleman, I still remember, wore a dhoti and a cotton shawl to cover his bear chest. His arms and grips  were long and strong. He examined me and told my father that I had broken both bones on my left arm.
Immediately two of his assistants came. They applied some herbals on my broken arm. These two people with little help from the vaidyan (name for the person who practices traditional medicines) pulled by broken arm to put the broken  pieces  in place. I still remember the pain I had suffered. My father could not see that and he moved to a far corner not to bear the gory sight. After setting the bones, one of his assistants brought a case made of bamboo reefs and my arm was encased in that one. After that  they  applied some herbal medicines and I was told not to move the hand for sometime. My father later told me that I did not cry during the entire process, which was very painful and the Vaidyan told him that I had great endurance power. I do not remember whether I cried or not since I was in a delirium.
 The next thing that I remember  is the pandemonium created by giving me the wrong medicine by my mother. During my childhood days, we were mostly given  Ayurveda medcines, which invariably included herbal mixtures, called Kashams. We had a family doctor called Kuttan Menon, who stayed in the other side of the river. We all disliked Kashams since they were pungent and bitter, but had a great liking for herbal tonics called aristhams, which are sweet and invariably palatable. We had a mix safe in our house, where we kept all food items and medicines. For some ailment, Kuttan Menon prescribed some herbal tonic, which was kept in the mix safe. That was kept in a long glass bottle and the tonics are ordinarily balck in texture.

 Someone had kept unknowingly a bottle of phenol, which was used for washing the floor in the safe. Normally such things are kept in hih places, where children cannot reach. The color and texture of the phenol are the same as that of tonic. This could have been done by our maid unknowingly or one  of my elder siblings. My mother opened the mix safe and gave me an ounce of the phenol thinking that it was the herbal tonic. She realized it only after I gulped down the black liquid. She started crying along with her the entire family. I was asked to throw it up and my mother inserted her fingers into my mouth to make the throwing up easier. I remember that I puked several times and some body suggested that I should be rushed to the English dispensary, which was 15 miles away and would take two hours to commute in a boat. I do not remember what had happened later and how the poisonous liquid was purged out from my system.

........More on next