Cecil's humor on Ghanvti Junior High brought a couple of trains of thought.
I have been reading several articles recently on how various illnesses and syndromes like nut allergies and a lot more like it are due to Canadians having a delicate immune system and how that is due to the fact that their parents do not allow them the normal activities that children indulge in. I credit my resilient immune system and my tough body constitution, if that is the medical term I want, to my upbringing. Not that my parents deserve any special credit for this particular merit, for they were only following the social environment of their time. Even so, I must have been more protected than others, since I was an only offspring and must have been more "sheltered" than those with siblings, the point being that my childhood friends must be more hardy than I am. I did a million things that parents today would frown on if they saw their children do it. I ate from the most unhygienic roadside food offerings in Bombay. For me taste was king. The sweat of UP Bhaiyyas in their bhel puri on Juhu beach, the unwashed hands of the Byculla mianbhai on the meat of the delicious seekh kebabs and khiri (cow udder), the delicious cold drinks from glasses washed a million times from the same dirty water in a bucket on Crawford Market streets, the tasty fresh turmeric coated Bombay duck cleaned God knows where and sold outside Cardoz's hooch joint in Mazagon - these and more were a normal part of my formative years. In Goa on summer holidays I indulged in things I was unable to do in Bombay. I ran, caught and embraced pigs in the backyard who had just returned form eating 'dhonn'. I went invited to Pidu's small hut and drank feni from coconut shells that I firmly believe he never washed. I ran barefoot after Nicolau our houseboy who grabbed the fallen ripe mango from the ground before I could and we ate it together, one lick from him and one from me, as the Ingles bab was his favorite city slicker friend. When I go to India on infrequent holidays, I still eat at places my Canadian Goan friends would shy from and yet come back unharmed. I return from a holiday in India without the runs or the myriad illnesses that others are subject to both during and after their brief holidays. And here I find people are told how their computer keyboards harbor more bacteria that the water in their toilet bowls and how the invisible spray from every flush spreads over everything in the washroom. Psshaw!!!