For us people the best time in college is the week or two (or three) after the mid terms when, although there are regular classes going on, we are revelling in the fact that there is no trouble (aka mid-terms/end- terms) in sight for quite some time. After the first mid-terms, a substantial part this very time of mine got marred by Jaundice. Oops! Sorry, Malaria. Our college’s hospital is the last place a patient should go to. A day after the mid-terms ended I had a severe headache and started shivering. Fever followed. Two days, two appointments with the doctor and a blood test later I was diagnosed with mild jaundice. For someone like me who had never been affected by any major disease (like Jaundice, Malaria, Dengue, Typhoid, Chicken Pox, Cancer, AIDS, Crohn’s Disease or Epilepsy) before, the coming week became a living hell. Fever rose like phoenix every day, only to be brought down by paracetamol at the end of the day. Shivering followed by fever had become a part of my daily routine. The medication was not working and I was giving up the ghost. My bed had become my world. After writhing in pain and suffering for a whole week (which seemed like a whole year), heeding the advice of a very dear friend, I called my dad and told him I wanted to come Home. Next evening I found myself shivering again but this time I had mom sitting by my side and felt for the first time that everything was fine, that it was just a matter of time. I don’t think my mom fell asleep that night. But I sure did, unlike the nights I had spent in college last week. Next day we were at a doctor’s. Again the pathology guys took a bloody part out of me and I came to know that a female Anopheles mosquito was the culprit. The doctor prescribed a medication that would rid me of a protist called Plasmodium vivax. Waves of fever appeared on alternate days with each attack of merozoites on my fresh red blood cells. But with my parents by my bedside, things went smoothly. Within a week the fever gave way, though it left me very weak. But within another week I regained myself pretty much.
The whole incident taught me, or in fact reminded me that in the most adverse times it is your home that comforts you the most, that very home which you leave behind in search of greater possibilities. Life is hard and it is inevitable that if a big opportunity to rise in life presents itself you have to leave your home and embark on a long journey. But remember, no matter how long or how difficult that journey is, in the end, after making the best of it, it takes you back home. Because, home is where the world is.
