the fallen

I'm sick.
Woke up in the night with the chills and couldn’t get warm. I had a fever and body aches worse than i think i can ever remember having in my life. Everything hurt, my head, my eyes, my teeth, my neck, my throat, my shoulders, my back, my arms, my legs, my knees, my feet, my toenails. Everything. Sweats, chills, fever, body aches.... classic flu symptoms and i could just not get comfortable, in any position, to sleep. Wow! Applied the typical wet cold clothe to forehead, that helped, then a back massage, that helped and I was able to nod off and find some comfort for a couple hours.
Only in India are you force fed when you’re sick. Whenever I have a fever, i have a natural aversion to food and i’ll often go a day or two without eating anything solid. Just liquids, and i always crave oranges. So sometimes i’ll live on oranges for two days.
Well, you learn something when your health and wellbeing are in the hands of one determined Indian family. Don’t count on getting your way at all when you are down for the count and deemed unable to make your own decisions anymore. No oranges for you missy, they increase cold. PLEASE???? Please??? Mmm, some excuses made. Oranges never come. A compromise is reached and i am allowed to squeeze a lemon into my water. Ok, that will have to do. Aaaah, sweet oranges, how i will miss you. I’m sure it is mostly a placebo affect with oranges for me, just like an unnecessary band-aid, oranges just make you FEEL better, emotionally and then physically, even if there is really no scientific benefit, it is just what i always associate with feeling better. I think they make me feel good so they do.
It is insisted that I take medicine for the fever and cold and body aches, even though it is usually my stanch policy to allow my body significant time to sort things out on its own. I believe that this somehow builds my immune system when i allow nature to run its course. There’ll be none of that here, it seems. And to take the medicine, you must eat something first, so i oblige to half a chapatti. This lack of enthusiasm for food is met with derision for sure. My appetite could not be lower, and i know my body, i know that when it has fever, it likes to be left alone to burn it off on its own, and it never hangs around long. I always think that the fever and raising body temperature is the bodies natural way of cleaning house, and it wouldn’t make sense to send the cleaning crew away, job half unfinished, but anyways..... i don’t win this battle. I do thrice turn down the offer to see a doctor, explaining that it is only the first day. Fevers are so natural. If it persists for days and days and something is clearly wrong, then we can consider the doctor. It amazes me at how quick we are to run to the doctor. For what? What will he do? Take my temperature? Tell me yes, you have a fever? Thanks doc! Then give me more of the tablets that i am already taking.
I AM allowed to sleep after this, which is all i want in the whole world right now. To stay in bed where it is warm and cozy and soft.
Nakul has to go to work. That’s fine. Ritu comes up to check me out. Oh man. She is satisfied and lets me rest. 2 hours later she is back with a plate of kichardi. Kichardi is a concoction made for the convalescing. It is supposed to be easy to digest and medicinal in nature. A mix of rice and moong dahl, cooked all in one pot with vegetables and turmeric, cumin and green chilis, it is considered the one and only super food here in india and anytime you are complaining of any kind of ailment, you will be served this.
I could not convince her not to make me eat it. I had to. She went downstairs for another fever and body aches tablet for me to take, i pushed around the food a little more on my plate. When she came back i protested again that i wasn’t hungry. I tried three times, but she wasn’t having any of it. So down goes the kichardi.
I think in India, eating is so important to health, and loss of appetite is... well, its not like in the west where we live in a state of almost constant over-indulgence. So much so that one day off will probably be good for us, give our digestion systems a break. But here, it is viewed as kind of the first step towards death, and to not eat, well... that is simply not acceptable.
So i eat as much of the dreaded kichardi with my no appetite as i can, Knowing that this is probably going to be counterproductive in my body’s natural processes. And i down the second pill. I am resigned by now to the fact that my body has ceased to be under my own authority anymore and is now the proper of one very loving, very caring Indian family in Laxman Jhula.

mmmmm, wrote that yesterday. Feeling better today. Just slept all day yesterday. Nakul brought oranged or... he says they are not oranges (but they look and taste like oranges). Maybe they are satsuma or some cousin of the orange,, anyhow. Did the trick. After eating two in the evening i immediately felt better. Funny, the body just knows. So ya, my fever broke in the night and my chills and pains are mostly gone. Still have a headache, still incredibly tired, but i think i might mosey downstairs and eat something. It will make everyone happy. Then come back to bed. Love to all!