As this winter chill set in, I felt as if I was coming down with the flu. My first thought was castor oil. Not antibiotics, just that rough concoction. Why bother with fancy medicine when you can rely on the ancient wisdom of a dollop that gave us the worst trauma as children?
To the Durban Indian, castor oil is not just a remedy. It is a lifestyle. Feeling a bit queasy after that second helping of wedding mutton biryani and dhal? I can hear my mother’s voice echoing from the downstairs kitchen: “You got stomach ache? Take oil. Rub the lamp oil in your navel.” Indian mothers have that way of asking a question and answering it in the same breath. “How that taste? Horrible.”
Some years ago, at a wellness resort in Kerala, I asked an Ayurvedic doctor about the navel treatment. She was adamant that there was some gland near the belly button that triggered a calming response as it absorbed the oil. My mother was clearly a custodian of some ancient indigenous knowledge of medicine.
It is the ingestion bit that is difficult to swallow. One spoonful and you are squirming like a feral cat clawed on your back. There is nothing to compare to the rough assault on your nose and mouth that comes in quick succession. “Pinch your nose and don’t spit!” was a curt threat that greeted many a child on the first day of the school holidays.
