The whole Covid lockdown situation and people being put in isolation left and right reminds me forcibly of the time, when as a child, I used to be ill and down with fever. Back then, having fever was quite a regular thing, even though I was as healthy as the kids around me - who used to have fever from time to time too. I would say that we never really lived in as 'sanitized' an environment as our children are. Sure, we were taught by our parents to bathe after playing outside, or wash our hands before eating and all, but the city wasn't as clean as it is now with drives like swachta sarvekshan !!. There were regular waves of malaria, viral fever, influenza and conjunctivitis and I have been down with all of these plus some more !!.
I used to go out to play - all day during the vacations and evening times when there was school. My friends and I used to play one-tip, underarm or overarm cricket matches, on the grounds and often on roads, where gutters were open all the time. Since some of us were too lazy to wear shoes or in too much of a hurry to go downstairs, we used to wear sandals or flotters and since these were not at all suitable while running, we removed them, to run barefoot on the roads!! The roads were scorching hot during summer holidays and my feet used to be calloused, skin peeling off all the time. In monsoons, we were out playing football on the ground in the sludge, splashing mud on each others face when kicking the ball. It used to be all hot, sweaty and dirty in the humid weather and a rain shower was most welcome, cooling the heat arising from a vigorous, fast and aggressive session of football.
The ground where we used to play cricket and football had a steel fence around it. This was damaged in many spots, so that one could enter and exit the ground from an open area. The ground was surrounded on two sides by roads. On the third side there was a school and all along the fourth one, was a downward bank leading to a 15 feet wide sewage canal.
Sometimes while playing cricket, an overbowled ball used to land up in the sewer. The canal usually had a flow - sometimes a quick one and sometimes not too fast. 10 rupees was big money at that time, atleast for us kids and we could do anything to rescue a 10 rupee rubber ball - be it from the dense bushes at the corner of the ground or be it from a stinky and repulsively smelly sewer !! And so, we used to climb over the fence and throw stones in the canal behind the ball so that it would drift towards us. Before it was too late, we formed a human chain and the guy nearest to the sewer and farthest from the fence used to 'rescue' the ball - one hand gripping the adjacent person's hand and with the other, guiding the ball toward himself using the cricket bat or a long stick. All this had to be done before it was too late and the ball was washed off downstream in the big underground sewer. Indeed this was the best display of team work !! Being the smallest (size wise) person in the group, I was the one who was the one farthest in the human chain and 'rescued' the ball most often, spoiling my flotters in the muck on the sewer banks. To this day, I can recognize the smell of sewer from a mile away !!
And then there were other smaller distractions. In the general store near the school we used to buy a 50 paise 'pepsi' which was basically a tube like popsicle frozen in a long plastic pack. You had to nip off the edge of the pack with your teeth, making a small hole out of which the cold flavoured juice could be sipped off - half an hour happily and sweetly spent. As we got older and had a little bit more money from our parents, we used to have a 5 rupee icy cool chamach gola after the morning 10-12 cricket match (during our Class 12 vacations.) All this despite repeated warnings from our parents not to consume them as the water used in these 'summer delights' could've been straight out of gutters as well, they said !! During childhood, I had quite often drank icy cold water right after coming home after play, have had loads of raw mangoes with salt and chilli powder and eaten gooseberries to my heart's content.
The point of bringing out these nostalgic memories is that,
1. We enjoyed all the above as kids, without fearing any fever, cold, cough, sore throat - which our parents were sure would follow. Upto a certain level, this kind of stuff indeed increased our immunity !!
Since the last year or so, everyone lives in fear of having any of these. For instance, during covid times, which parent would send their kid in the scorching hot sun and let them have something like a chamach gola? Even a simple cold might be a covid positive infection and god knows how deadly it might be?
2. Why is the corona virus killing millions and trillions in developed countries and is not as effective in Africa where large parts of the continent have not-so-good to bad sanitation? Is it because, as a developing country, we have become paranoid and have such highly hygienic conditions that our immune systems have become lazy and cannot fight corona virus?
3. Do you see kids these days on roads playing cricket or football? Or for that matter do you see kids playing outdoor sports at all? Leave aside the covid times (past one year), but generally do you see them outside?
In those yesteryear memories, my heart wanders....
And on these questions, my mind ponders....
