The title is weird right? Yea. But believe it or not this blog post will cover all of the topics mentioned in that title! This post is about early childhood memories from back home in India. I can’t recall what time of the year it was at the start of this post.. since its always hot hard to tell if it was summer or not.
We (my parents, sister and I) were in Chennai. By my estimation somewhere in the mid to late 1990s. My sister and I were in our pre-teen years. Our cousins (ages around 9 and 6 years old) had returned from Addis Ababa with my uncle and aunt and were living one street down from our home. We were thrilled to be hanging out with them for longer than a few days at a time every few years! We did sleepovers and several times a week they would spend their afternoons after school with us or we would walk over to theirs.
One of many issues with living in a tropical environment, such as Chennai, was the sheer number of bugs and critters we had to contend with. There were houseflies, mosquitos, cockroaches, lizards, mice, rats and sometimes (less often) snakes. The apartment my cousins were living in had a serious mosquito problem. The usual measures were in place – mosquito nets, repellant coils that burn an incense like substance that can ward off mosquitos, windows and doors closed, swatters to get the ones that still made it inside (a large number still did!). But even with all that, we got consistently bitten by a whole bunch of these mosquitos. Didn’t stop us kids from continuing with our games and hang outs. Some of the best times were had!
Soon enough, all the biting led to a very likely outcome. We started running temperature, followed by chills and shivers and feeling generally more ill than usual. All four of us fell sick in quick succession. I can’t recall who got ill first but we were all sick soon after and spent a majority of our recovery together. Quick doctor visits confirmed Malaria as the cause of our ailments. Chloroquine pills were prescribed and we were put on a regimen for taking these meds since their effectivity in battling malaria depended on it (we were told). You can read more about it on trusty wikipedia or cdc’s page.
I’ve only had Malaria that one time but it is etched in my memory given the sheer uniqueness of the illness. High fever was a given. That was the first time I experienced hallucinatory spells that accompany fever. I would say/ask about random things that my mom and dad would later recount. Appetite was low to none. Body aches and grogginess were present the entire duration of the illness. And the pills were huge! I did not figure out how to swallow pills easily and this was my biggest nightmare the entire time! I couldn’t miss a dose but I couldn’t swallow the pill to save my life either (quite literally lol).
But, there are a few other snippets from this time that I distinctly remember. One of the several days that we were sick, I don’t remember why or how but all four of us cousins were lying down like fallen soldiers delirious with fever. We were all in the same room just suffering next to each other. I remember the parents walking in and inquiring and just gazing at us worriedly and pitifully. I ventured to raise my head from the pillow to look at them. In my head I remember thinking I just need to show them I’m strong and ok. All I have to do is lift my head 🙂 I did and they immediately said ‘Look. She seems to be doing slightly better off than the rest of them!’ I took that as a slight to my suffering though 😀 Here I was suffering and feeling like I was dying and they think I’m not as sick as the rest of them! The outrage! I promptly put my head back on the pillow and closed my eyes. Haha!
Between bouts of delirium where the fever climbed and I was just unable to open my eyes, there were brief moments of reprieve when I’d wake up to eat and drink something. I remember there was a movie playing on TV and on repeat. It involved Chuck Norris, a magical white horse and a storyline around Norris as the knight on the horse 😀 I know… an unlikely combination. I honestly can’t tell if it was a real movie or a figment of my imagination due to the delirium. But I’ve been googling Norris movies that involved horses. The first one that comes up is Lone Wolf McQuade. No idea if this is the movie… the timeline seems reasonable but I can’t say for sure without actually watching it? If anyone reading this knows what the movie is comment below. I guess we’d have to watch them all to get an answer! Ha!
The other distinct memory from that time was Yanni’s concert in India. This does help date the occurrences somewhat because according to Google this event happened in 1997! I remember listening to him perform in New Delhi with the Taj Mahal as the backdrop. We were all watching this from our home in Chennai through our old fashioned TV. I still love to listen to his performance of Santorini. The link is of his performance live from the Acropolis. A joy to listen to. I vividly remember feeling so ill but also unable to stop listening and enjoying the performance. The power of music!
Anyhoo, going back to Norris for a second, I googled the year 1997 and Norris and guess what movie came up? (Well you really don’t have to guess .. you can just google it! or read on and I’m going to spill it … Forest Warrior. Honestly the storyline doesn’t mention a horse. It mentions an eagle, wolf and bear but no horse. The plot has potential for a magical horse to make an appearance but wiki doesn’t say anything about it. Once again, we can’t tell one way or the other without watching. Who’s up for it? A weekend project maybe? From the reviews it seems like someone should get paid to watch the movie though haha.
Well that’s about all the memories of that strange time back in the 90’s when all the kids in our household were down for the count and Mr. Norris and Mr. Yanni kept us company with strange tales and stellar music.
Do you have similarly eccentric stories? I’m all ears 🙂
As always, if you’re interested in more of my crazy stories, check out my other posts on food and fun facts.
