Experimentation with homeopathy

As a child, there had always been a fascination for homeopathy, scientifically defined as 'a form of alternative medicine in which practitioners use highly diluted preparations'. To me, it was the tasty cure for a stomach ache or headache, without the painful ordeal of having to swallow a tablet like Disprin or Pudin Hara, a tough thing to do at the time. The septicemia attack when I was 8 or 9, however, accustomed me to the art of tablet taking and since then, drips and tablets don't bother me.

So there I was, a child bored during her summer holidays, not sure of how to spend her time. Since school was out, there was no faking illnesses either, something that every child would look forward to doing every morning. Mummy rarely bought my 'tummy aches because of the bad cheese in the previous dinner's pizza' or 'headache because of excess swimming the previous evening'. A pity, because some of those excuses would actually sell if I had sold my brilliance with better marketing skills!

Either way, on one summer afternoon, I decided to take on a course of homeopathy for a month. I made sure that Mummy was asleep and Papa was in the office, for it felt slightly silly doing what I was. I took out the box of Glucon-D from the cabinet and cut out blank papers into small rectangles. Each tiny rectangle had to be given the same dosage of the 'delicious white medicine', which would prevent me from anything and everything that could fall sick. I could not afford to fall sick that summer, since big things were happening for me-the summer swimming camp which meant consuming a plate of masala chips after every session, the arts and crafts summer camp, and more importantly, the mental preparation for entering middle school on the next floor in the schools building!

There was a lot of concentration devoted to this job that I had undertaken, and exactly one teaspoon of Glucon-D was put into each paper. Then, it was neatly wrapped in a four-fold manner into a smaller rectangle. There was one rectangle to be consumed after every four hours (of my being awake in  a day). And since this was approved by no doctor, it had to be done on the sly. And so, the medication began its course.

No one did get to know of my medication, and wonders never cease, I actually don't remember falling sick that summer! I would pat myself everyday on the shoulder and say, 'Good going, Dr Kejriwal!'