31. Mirror and Mother
The next day afternoon, I went to a skin specialist as soon as I woke up, without even brushing or taking bath. The doctor confimed my suspicions -- that the senseless skin on my wrist was nothing but leprosy. Before he started his usual 'dont worry' stuff, I ran out of the office. I didnt want to waste anymore time. I wasted enough, may be I was already late.
First things first. I went to the nearest internet cafe and typed ' Armadillo leprosy', and there it was before my eyes..thousands of search results.
Mycobacterium leprae infection has recently been detected in wild armadillos in Brazil. Leprosy is still endemic in Brazil and although its transmission is mostly by person-to-person contact, many cases report no history of previously known leprosy contact. It has been suggested that other sources of M. leprae may contribute to the transmission of leprosy in some areas. Our objective was to investigate whether contact with armadillos is associated with leprosy. A case-control study was carried out in Brazil. Data was collected from 506 leprosy patients and 594 controls on exposure to armadillos and age, sex, place of birth and living conditions. Univariate analysis and unconditional logistic regression were conducted to investigate whether leprosy was associated with exposure to armadillos.
Conclusion: The results of this study suggest that direct exposure to armadillos is a risk factor for leprosy in Brazil.
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A scourge since pre-biblical times, leprosy is a chronic disease that produces sores on the skin and mucous membranes and infects nerves, producing loss of sensation in the affected areas. Clinically, the disease appears as two types. In the more virulent form, or lepromatous leprosy, the numerous sores contain many bacteria; in the milder form, or tuberculoid leprosy, fewer sores appear because of the body’s immune response to the infection. Signs of the disease often do not appear for many years. While leprosy is rarely fatal, it can cause permanent disfigurements .
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Thirty years ago, the number of people worldwide with leprosy was estimated to be between ten to twelve million. Since the introduction of multi-drug treatment, the number of new cases reported in 2004 has been reduced to 410,000. Despite recent efforts to eradicate the disease, full control of leprosy has eluded populations in Southeast Asia, India, South America, and other tropical areas of the world. New drugs may still be needed to control new cases resistant to current drug treatment.
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Strangely enough, in the 1960s scientists were researching leprosy by injecting the disease in armadillos for experiments. However, they found that many of the armadillos already had it.
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India continues to record the highest number of new leprosy cases in the world followed by Brazil and Indonesia.
Leprosy stages a comeback in Bengal
A leprosy patient is someone who has a skin patch or patches with a definite loss of sensation in early stage and other signs include one or more tender enlarged peripheral nerves; the presence of leprosy bacilli on the slit skin smear at early stage. In late stage, it presents with deformities.It is important to note that deformities caused by the bacilli in the late stages once treated are irreversible.
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I don't need to mention here explicitly, but I would like to say that the images of leprosy patients were nothing less than horrific. Surprisingly they were all, especially the patients in late stages, appeared like the fearful armadillo I had seen on the ataka. It was as if they were all becoming into inhuman and grotesque Armadillos, slowly and surely.
I tried to imagine my mother. The same mother who was called as the most beautiful girl in the whole village; Yes, the same mother who used to sit before the mirror, applying coconut oil to her long hair, admiring her beauty; the same mother who thought her only strength in this cruel world was her beauty; applying talcum powder to her face...I imagined her taking the talcum powder in her hands..I imagined the smell..I imagined the smoke-like image.
I imagined her wearing a Saree. I imagined her wearing gold. I imagined the jealous looks of her friends...looking at her assets and her face.
Mirror and Mother.
"God, what happened to her face!!! It is not the ugliness I am talking about..it became weird..she became inhuman..a devil..a satan", my Dad's words reverberated.
Is it possible for the leprosy to change the shapes of the face without outwardly manifesting itself???
I looked in the mirror, didn't notice any change.
There is no question about one thing : Leprosy does not kill. Leprosy is the real living hell.
There was no psychoanalysis, no internal mind talk, no intellectual masturbation.The pain was intense. But, I enjoyed it. I fucking enjoyed it. Because, I deserved it.
The goal was clear : Find mother.
If she is alive, do I have the guts to face her? I dreaded the image of her.
The search re-started again. What prompted me to drive to some remote village? What prompted me to go into a hut? Why was that kid watching that particular channel? Why did I sit there?
Paul Newman hit the balls. The balls dispersed. After that, the balls are not in control of newman. They follow rules of physics.
The balls : Me, Mother, and the Kid. Our lives were intersecting.
The ever increasing pain in my heart cleansed me, it gave me energy, it pushed me. A new man of action was born, a disciple of Sherlock Holmes. The Hound of Baskerville became the Armadillo on the Ataka. Nothing bothered me anymore. It was as if I found,once again, whats wrong with me --- I lacked motivation. Now, there was motivation, pain, and inspiration. There was anticipation. There was passion. I was a mad artist.
What a clarity!! Pain mingled with peace. The mind giving up to the soul. In all the chaos of the mind, I found a meaning..a sense of purpose..a light house guiding me..telling me to just follow it. There was no doubt.
I drove to the town, the town where everything started. I parked my car before the library..and tried to sleep. In the morning, as soon the library was opened, I ran inside to the surprise of the librarian. He didn't ask me many questions, and pointed me to the old news papers section -- a huge room full of old news papers.
Fortunately, they were all sorted by the date; I rummaged through the dust and spider web filled papers, and finally got a bundle of papers during the 2 year period before my mother's disappearance. I started reading each paper looking for any bizarre incidents that had happened during that period. When I reached the 10th paper, I decided that it would be impossible for me to wade through all of them, and besides, I didn't know what I was looking.
As I was about to give up my search, an old man asked me if he could be of any help. I asked him straight-up if anything bizarre had had happened during that time period two decades back.
"What do you mean by bizarre?", he asked.
"Anything to do with animals and skin diseases", I replied.
He thought for a while, murmuring to himself, '"Bizarre..bizarre...bizarre", and then asked,"You mean like a circus?".
"May be". I replied impatiently. Something was telling me that time was running out..that I had to move fast..without knowing for which event it was running out? I assumed it was plain old anxiety with excitement and anticipating the moment I was gonna see my mother.
"Yup, a circus did pass through this town during the time period you mentioned"
"What was so bizarre about it?", I interrupted him
"Well, nothing bizarre about it."
Think, old man, think.
"Okay, can you give me the time period during which they passed this town", I asked.
"Oh that's easy. It was always during the festival season during the month of October..try 2nd week", he said.
It didn't take much time for me to find an article in the district edition of the newspaper.
Animals escaped from the circus. People are advised to notify the nearest police station if they see any wild animals. They are also advised not to feed, or play with them. It is advised not to approach them. The circus owners seems to have told the police that among the escapees there was also an animal which was touted as the freak of the circus, a fearful looking animal. But as of now, no one has seen such animal.
That was it. I searched for more articles in all papers that month, and found nothing.
An ugly looking leprosy carrying Armadillo was the freak of that circus, and one night, it escaped along with its compatriots. It found a cozy ataka and found a borrow in it..in the same house me, my mother and father lived....
I started to think up a story trying to tie all the loose ends, and it all made sense...and none of it felt fantastic
That fierce looking armadillo made my mother behave crazy, and because of that no one believed her. In the end, my mom realizing that she contacted leprosy left the house partly in shame, and partly to protect me from herself....
A neat tight story....but where did she go? What happened to her?
My thoughts stopped at the beggar, the beggar in my mother's village, the same beggar I declared as crazy. His words reverberated in my mind.."You didn't suffer enough...didn't suffer enough..."
I drove to my mother's village. It was raining, and a rainbow appeared on the horizon. It was beautiful, the rain I mean;never liked rainbows.They are creepy.All illusions are creepy.
The sun bunked classes that day as the depression and rain took over. It was already dark, almost, when I reached the village. I drove to the beggars hut.
"I think I have suffered enough.Now tell me what happened to her", I asked him politely.He was on his bed smoking his home made cheap cigar.
"What you talking about?". He appeared incredulous.
I showed him my wrist. He noticed the white patch; I did notice change of colors in his face.But he was adamant.
"I don't know what you are talking about", he replied.
"All right. Think about it. I have suffered enough, and you know it. I will come tomorrow. Think about it the whole night". I left.
I parked my car at my relatives house, went inside, talked some shit, and then came out through the backyard with no one noticing me. I walked in that darkness to the beggar's hut; hiding myself in the bushes with his hut insight; I waited.
Continued here..
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