Taking a bow for humble camphor
No stranger to magic – black, red or manja
THE camphor bag hung around my neck through much of my childhood. It was a little black pouch no bigger than a thumbnail. A scrap of black cloth was roughly hand-stitched into a square.
The strap came from the same fabric. It was meant to help ease my wheezing chest.
The camphor came straight from our township home altar. It was not the fancy stuff from today’s pricey health shops. The very same flammable block that was an essential ingredient in our daily pooja. Heaven forbid that I should have walked near an open flame. The vapours wafting from the block were meant to ease my breathing.
A clearer nasal passage meant I could cough up the phlegm that built in my chest. Looking back, I picture myself as this skinny lad with woollen socks up to his knobby knees, carefully pressed navy blue shorts, good haircut and that funny bag hidden under the white shirt. There was a holier-than-thou primary school teacher who had a slew of especially annoying questions.
She was a new recruit to a happy clappy clan.
“What is that black magic thing?” I cringed into a ball of embarrassment as my mates tittered. Imagine if she had to see all the strings I had tied around my waist.
We were no strangers to magic – black, red or manja. Once for a laugh, a mate and I cut three monkey balls from a nearby bush. We dotted it with kumkum, added a handful of cloves, and a one cent coin, and tossed it over the fence of a neighbour who had refused to return the tennis ball that accidentally ended up in her yard.
That brought a few days of peace as she left for Verulam to consult a “come right uncle”.
Since there were lots of kids with the same ailment, I was spared teasing by my peers. The real embarrassment came in the PE (physical education) change room.
Minus my clothes, I looked like a Christmas tree with everything but the tinsel. As I grew older and stronger, I was spared both the camphor bag and a few other items of protection.
I learnt afterwards that had we had the money, a piece of my umbilical cord would also have been put in a tiny gold tube around my neck.
The camphor eased my breathing enough to enable me to win a race at the school sports meeting. When I got home from rigorous training and complained of aches and joint pains, I was rubbed down with camphor oil. It did the trick in easing the muscular tension but I smelt like the prayer room.
The camphor oil was also an essential part of the three oils liberally applied from head to toe before the annual Deepavali bath.
Between the camphor and learning a spot of shallow-end swimming my chest ailment disappeared. More recently, rheumatoid arthritis cropped up.
Consulting both doctor Google and an ayurvedic practitioner, I found that arthritic pains were relieved through a rub with camphor oil. My folks did not have access to the internet back in the day but they had a real store of indigenous knowledge. Had it not been for the camphor bag, I might have had to spend a lot of time in the hospital.
Then, like now, hospitals are a good place to catch any number of diseases that you did not arrive with.
At the bottom of my garden in middle class suburbia is a gnarled camphor tree. Every winter I trim it just for a few logs for the fireplace. The familiar smell wafts me to my childhood. The medicinal camphor is derived from that tree whose scientific name more erudite people will know.
The prayer block comes with a mix of turpentine. It may be useful but it comes with its dangers.
All told the camphor has given me a good measure of relief from both chest cough and joint pain.
In fact, I can now boast that I am strong enough to climb Kilimanjaro.
Naidoo is a goldmine of useless information