SOAR THROAT

 

SOAR THROAT

 

LT COL NOEL ELLIS

06/VII/2024

 

How I dread catching a cold followed by cough. The throat goes soar, the nose is runny, the eyes are watery. You lose your sense of taste and smell. One feels dull and dejected.

Mom would keep yelling at us, “jamun ke baad pani mat peena”, “Aam ka chaip nikal kar khana”, “mumfali khane ke baad pani mat peena”, to avoid catching a cough. We would do exactly the opposite on purpose. Most of the times she would be right and then…. Her medicine used to be two tight slaps, for not being obedient.

I am not sure how many of you would remember ‘Mandal’s Throat Paint’. When nothing worked, we were dragged to the MI room in the school campus where we stayed. Our nursing assistant Mr Sucha Singh would pull out a ‘jhaaru ka tinka’ from the cupboard. (That is what we called it). Then roll a swab of cotton at one tip, dip it in ‘tincture’ a brownish viscous liquid. For us everything was tincture as for cuts and bruises he used the same type of coloured liquid.

Then he would say, say aaaaaaa… He would hold our jaws tight in his hands and when the mouth was wide open, he would command, ‘zabaan nikaalo’ and then thrust that swab deep inside the throat till we gurgled and choked. Miracles used to happen. A few coughs and suddenly there would be a drastic relief. Those were the days.

It again took me back to NDA days. Cheering till your throats went hoarse used to be the difference between getting table liberties or they being excused for dinner that night when we didn’t cheer well for our squadron teams. The third termers got a bamboo from the Corporals, who got a dose from the Sergeants who in turn faced the wrath of the CSM. (Company Sergeant Major). The team never lost because of bad performance, it lost only because of lack of cheering…. period.

To test if we cheered well, was checked by the ‘mutt and jeff’ technique. One third termer would make us roll and haunch till our games dress and the colour of the mud could be interchanged. With every roll or haunch, we would cheer for the squadron, till our voices reached main street.

Then another senior would come and speak to us softly. In that, when he exchanged notes, he would know which second termer had shammed during cheering. The people spoke clearly or who didn’t have a miffed/muffled voice were segregated and dealt separately.

You got back to the squadron minutes before study period with your cycle in your neck and every muscle almost giving up. After parking your cycles in the stand and before we could rush to our cabins, fifty bend stretches for promising to cheer well in the next match was mandatory or else the consequences must be borne by rolling up the stairs to your respective cabins.

While all this was running like a reel in my mind as I was cleaning the water lily tubs, a strange sounding ‘bird call’ caught my ears. The sound was familiar, but it appeared as if its throat was choked. (Gala baitha hua tha)

A black bird came and sat on the Moringa tree. It was our dear Koel. Her feathers shone jet black in the sun. Her coat stood out in the clear blue sky and the nicely washed tree from the previous nights rain.

Other birds were not happy to see her on their favourite perch. She refused to budge. When things got settled, she started to sing again. Her koohoo was totally miffed as if all night she sang and in the morning her throat was not fit to sing. However, she had to sing as a habit.

What happened, why this hoarse voice? “Kuch lete kyon nahin…...? Vicks ki goli lo, khich-khich dur karo”, I sang.

“Well, we were up all night due to the heavy rain”, she said. “All of us got drenched and we caught a cold and the throat has gone soar”. “Then stop singing for a while”, I said. “Such beautiful weather, with all trees nice and washed, the weather being so conducive, we can’t stop singing”, she said.

“You sound like a Crow rather than a Koel”, I said. She winked at me and said “let me reveal a secret. The crows will think us to be one of them and take us to their nest, where I would lay my eggs on the quiet”.

“How smart! But, go to your MI room and get some ‘throat paint’ applied”, I said. Off flew the Koel.

 Did she go to take medicine or to lay her eggs? I wonder!!!!!

 

JAI HIND

© ® NOEL ELLIS