The wounded recognized the wounded

Living in the city can be so different than from the remote villages, one can never imagine.

There is no electricity in the house at night, oil lamps made of brass is used and nature at such times is so quiet and dark that one can only be speechless. The cricket noise and sometimes you will hear the noise in the grass which could be of a snake who is finding its way to you.

All that is scary and adventurous especially when you are visiting during school vacation.

“A vacation is having nothing to do and all day to do it in” ~ Robert Orben

The little girl Asha, who is only 5-6 years old is scared of all these creatures be it snake, insects because some of these ones she has never seen in the city and the variety of spiders you get to see in the rain-forest areas, and their names are more or less the knowledge that she takes from here to her school to share with her friends.

Life in the middle of greenery can be happy until one morning she saw some rashes on her hand. It looked like a rash on the skin which if broken can spill the water and be infectious. She ran to show this to her mom.

Asha: Mom, look …look what happened here? Its red and I feel like itching, but I am scared.

Mom looks at it and talks to her sister (Aunt) Leena.

When Aunt Leena looks at it her immediate reaction -  oh this is spider poison. This is easy to cure once we show her to the village spider physician who practices Ayurveda medicine.

Mom is not much impressed as she doesn’t know if that will help Asha.

However, they plan to take her to the spider related issues treating physician.

Asha along with Aunt Leena goes to see the Ayurveda physician.

The physician of course was an elderly person with grey hair, unshaven slight gray beard with aged grayish eyes, skinny staring at Asha. Asha got scared at first and she hesitated to be in front of him, so she stayed behind her Aunt Leena.

Aunt Leena gave the details and pulled Asha with her hand to show the rashes.

The physician holds the hand and checks with holding his glasses and says yes this is spider bite and I can give her some medicine for which she needs to take shower and come in a towel. This seemed like Ayurveda with some magic.

Asha was scared and whispered to her aunt, ‘you also come I am scared to go alone’!

Aunt Leena said, ‘you should be fine he is going to treat you and give medicine’.

Now, Asha goes to this place where it’s all covered with coconut leaves as a shed and she goes in there with a towel wrapped and finds this physician is waiting for her.

Asha as always cautious and nervous in front of strangers, sat there as the physician asked her to do so. He started chanting some mantras and as he was chanting his hands were touching Asha on her head, shoulder and then her stomach and below when Asha got uncomfortable and started crying to raise her voice enough to be heard, because at this time she feels she is all alone.

The physician gives a stern look at Asha with his grey eyes and splashes some water and then lets her go.

“One believes things because one has been conditioned to believe them” ~ Aldous Huxley

Asha is all scared and comes home with her aunt Leena and the moment she gets in the house she runs to her mom and holds her and starts crying.

Asha’s mom asks what happened, what did the physician say?

By now Asha stops crying and tells everything in detail that happened to her.

Asha’s mom gets furious, and she goes out of the room scolding her elder sister Leena,

“Is this how they treat here? I thought he is a respectable man in the community and this is how he treats small kids?”

Aunt Leena when she heard the story, got so angry that she straight went to the physician immediately without thinking for a second time and broke that treatment shed and called off his son to stop this business. She yelled at them saying, “I will let everyone know in this village what you do and how you treat people”.

By saying that she broke the shed and walked out of the place.

That was the day and the spider treating physician’s business was never seen or heard ever. After that incident his shop was closed forever. Asha felt that spider is less scary than the physician. She still can see his face and that picture of the shed where she was sitting and the physician sitting in front of her staring in to her eyes.

“Childhood should be carefree, playing in the sun; not living a nightmare in the darkness of the soul.” ~ Dave Pelzer

We always respect people who are elderly and hence people wouldn’t talk openly about such molestation and abuse that might be still happening around the world. It’s still a taboo and many places it’s the elderly age that inhibits to expose them because they fear what other might say or think about them.  

“She is still a prisoner of her childhood; attempting to create a new life, she re encounters the trauma” ~ Judith Lewis Herman

We should be able to share things with our near and dear ones otherwise there is no use of calling loved ones anymore.

If loved ones are the one who are taking these kids, then they need to be extra careful no matter how well you know the person.

Protect your kids from these vicious animals because this puts a life-long impact in the minds of these children who are molested, the spider bite can always be cured but the mental trauma is something that keeps haunting.

“If the sound of happy children is grating on your ears, I don’t think it’s the children who need to be adjusted.” ~ Stefan Molyneux

~ Dawn