Sunday, July 08, 2007

Vaccination Blues

I think most of us have those vaccination marks on our upper arms. I dont know how many of us remember how we got that. Well I do. Like most kids me and both my brothers were shit scared when it came to facing the needle. Though these days my mom has put on much weight and till some years back she would be the winner in arm wrestling with her sons, those days she was very slim and weak (If u didn't know, many Indian Girls/Women are anaemic). And it was difficult for her to take three evil kids to the hospital for vaccination. I remember she would somehow make a bundle of three of us and haul us to the hospital in a rickshaw and even the rickshaw wala bhaiyya would laugh his way to the hospital with three kids piled on each other. The hospital was nearby. The moment we get our opportunity, all of us ran back to home. Getting us vaccinated was an exercise of sort for her. I don't remember if my father ever helped her in this regard.

Though I was afraid of the needle, I nevertheless was fascinated by the shape and the size of the needle. Later I did a deal with the doctor. He would give me a syringe (without the needle) and I would come for vaccination. So after each insertion, I would come back crying from the hospital with an empty syringe. I was going through some old photographs and realized that I carried the same syringe in many photos. Old photos are fun. You can recall so many things from them. I have always preferred the old film camera to the new digital ones. I have always been able to associate more with the photos when some hard work has gone into it. But things are changing. More than the hard work involved what should matter is the content and the subject and it does actually.

1 comment:

Rohan said...

easily the best post of the series so far..Lage raho MunnaBhai!