After the scourge of Corona virus, lurking around for a while, a different kind of virus is back in Odisha, my home state back home in India. It is another kind of virus which used to go viral during our childhood days. Each one from my generation growing up in India must have gone through at least one bout of "AKHI DHARA ROGA" - the disease of Conjunctivitis. It's a malignant form of pink eye, very irritating and highly contagious. It was very much active during the 1970s and 80s. Now a days I din't see or hear a lot about it until now.
The disease is said to have originated from East Bengal, presently Bangladesh, hence aptly named "Jai Bangla (Hail Bengal), imported into West Bengal by the refugees from East Bengal during the Bangladesh war of liberation in 1971. As Odisha shares a common border with West Bengal, it didn't take long for the disease to walk into its neighborhood.
At peak of the epidemic, it wasn't uncommon to see folks wearing dark glasses in public, even in the middle of night. It not only gave comfort to the diseased eyes, it prevented others from making eye contact - strongly rumored that if you look into the infected red eyes of a person, the disease jumps into your eyes in a few seconds. Conjunctivitis isn't an airborne disease. Like common cold, it is passed through contact, especially if you touch or rub your eyes after coming in touch with an infected person.
When I entered into the hostel life in REC (Now NIT) Rourkela, the seniors flocked around us the freshers, the fresh read meat to them. They swarmed around us like ants feasting on a lump of sweet. One of the seniors was hounding me when a close childhood friend of mine who was my classmate from Bhubaneswar arrived on scene looking for me. He was wearing dark glasses. It attracted the Senior's attention who told me to caution my friend - "This guy is showing DADAGIRI (Big brother attitude) by wearing goggles (a common term for dark glasses). He is going to get a lot of thrashing". Least he knew that my friend had already contracted Conjunctivitis soon after arriving at hostel, the ideal place for any contagious disease to go viral. The seniors, champion at showing us NAALI AKHI (Red eyes) were now afraid of making eye contact.
Next day in our class our Engineering Chemistry teacher queried one of the guys wearing dark glasses - "You caught your eyes" ? It was transliteration of what is said in Odia -"TAMA AKHI DHARICHI" ? Back to hostel we had a hearty laugh at the teacher's expense in those torrid initial days in college amidst the ragging by haranguing seniors.
Soon I managed to catch my eyes. One fine morning when I woke up, I could barely open my eyelids. It apparently came from my roommate who inadvertently passed it to me. The infection lasted one full week. The most painful part was getting up in morning when your eyes refuse to open. Every morning I had to wash my eyes with warm water, put a few eye drops followed by wearing a pair of cheap dark glasses before I ventured out.
It was perhaps in my destiny to get infected, as a friend's curse for poking fun at him got better at me. Notorious for satires and cracking jokes, I spread the rumor that this was how my friend was introducing himself to our new classmates from various parts of the state - "MATE KEHI INTERCOURSE KALENI, SEITHI PAI MU NIJA KU NIJE INTERCOURSE KARUCHI" - "No one intercoursed me, so I am intercoursing myself". Poor guy inadvertently substituted the word "introduce" with "intercourse". He was the butt of jokes which it ran its full course as I kept on telling this joke to everyone in the hostel for the rest of his stay in REC, Rourkela. I had my tryst with Conjunctivitis as my friend had the last laugh by passing it to me. That was the only time I got that irritating infection and hope to never get again.
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