Chickenpox

In the summer of school closing I got chickenpox. The annual exams were going on but back in those days missing an exam didn't matter much. Besides I was deemed a bright one. I was confined to the corner room on the first floor- I don't remember if anyone gave me company during the night. I'm sure someone must have been there, but they largely kept a distance. A year before that I had measles but it was in another house at my father's workplace. The time of measles was far more pleasant. The air was cool and the sunlight wasn't too bright. I was given liberal helpings of beaten rice soaked in milk though the fever had ruined my sense of taste. Above all uncle M kept me company most of the time and soothed me with his stories. This time round none of it was there except the poha and milk. Here at the ancestral house everyone was busy with something or the other. My mother had too much of responsibilities in my father's absence too. The room was smaller and too directly struck by sunlight. I felt tense and anxious and clung to anyone that came to the room. Father came home for the weekend soon after I took the customary bath after a week. It was still considered risky being too close as I could still pass on the germs. I insisted on sleeping near him. I always slept in his room when he came home, for the stories he told me. Everyone tried to dissuade me. However father took me in without any remark. The next week he came back, and he had contracted chicken pox. It must have been far more painful for him to have it at his age. I was too young to feel guilty, but I knew he had got it from me. Nobody chided me though.