At first, I found it hard to comprehend. A teenage girl had visited my clinic. The girl’s mother, a superstitious woman had delayed consultation with a doctor, for she feared that she would leave the gods disconcerted. The teenage girl had turned into something of a celebrity in the neighbourhood; hordes of labour women rallied to my clinic from the adjoining villages. Men waited under their parked Lorries; with their brown gums chewing tobacco and their scarred fingers exchanging cigarette stubs, they holidayed before the clinic. The day had been chosen for a doctor’s consultation based on a religious scripture’s dubious conception of the village’s temple men. Two groups of women sat with their backs forming the crown of battlements on either side of the clinic; in the centre of the circular spine battlements were the bronze idols of their goddesses.
The girl was wearing a crimson red pullover on top of white pyjamas; sleeves of the dress were stitched tight around her arms. A white scarf around the neck was littered with blood soaked palm impressions of the village women; it was a sign of appeasing the bronze goddess. I began my examination by checking the vitals; she was experiencing hypertension; irises were developing a scaly green look; her skin felt like a withered bark, rough and scarred; fingernails were moist and soft.
I ordered for the girl’s mother to help the girl undress. The mother unhooked the tight stitches made around the sleeves, steered the steel top chair around and unzipped the crimson red pullover. Presently, the girl’s back was against me; I lifted my gaze to meet the mother’s eyes seeking an explanation. A homemade corset, woven by coconut cord, was wound round the teenage girl’s bosom; her breathing was compromised at the expense of suppressing a malady.
A helpless cry escaped the mother; an audible sigh left the girl as the corset was removed. Untethered, the cord corset now laid by the bedside. Her bosom had shrunk to one-third of its size; without the corset, her slender spine was bent like a bow. The sobbing mother pointed towards the armpits; she stood behind the girl and lifted the girl’s armpits to join them at the top. One look at the armpits and it struck me; the tight stitches around the sleeves were done for a reason. The girl’s blood vessels around the arm pit comingled to a centre point; here, green crawlers emanated like branches do from a tree’s bark.
The girl was turning into a tree; her slender frame was all scalen, patchy and dark brown, for it constituted the tree’s trunk. Her arms were cracked, withered and ashen, for the body was getting rid of the arms; in their place, two budding branches were rising up. She had evidently lost hair; the villagers had painted the bald head with turmeric.
The branch on the left armpit had grown considerably; it had developed eye shaped leaves with curved backs. I delicately reached out with my hand to examine the leaves; the teenage girl was beside herself with horrific anger. In a flash, the gloved wrist was twisted and my head rammed into the operating table. Blood poured out of my head, two sharp pointed tongs had been negligently left on the table; now I had two deep gashes on the left side of my head, they resembled a snake bite. The nurse I employed in my private hospital was the niece of my friend’s; she grabbed me by my arm into the adjoining room. Here, she produced a dressing and cleaned my wound; and half an hour later, with the nurse begging me to let go of the examination, I entered the patient’s ward. The girl stately lifted her chin to record my entering into the room; the mother who had wetted her sari’s end with salty tears, rose up to meet me. I managed to smile; the painkillers had kept my whining head placated for the moment. Before I could rashly pursue my examination, I had to survey my territory.
Pulling the blinds apart from my clinic, I peered through the window that overlooked rice and paddy fields. Through the cracked glass window, I noticed the scarlet sun rise above the Lorries’ backs loaded with rice bags. Light trickled through the air gaps between the rice bags and inseminated the mist droplets on window sashes; soon the dewdrops turned into golden mercury coloured beads on the necklace of the yellow varnished sashes. Outside, the sedate humming was turning into raucous chanting of mantras; the villagers believed they could summon the bronze goddess by rubbing turmeric on her idols. A heavy woman with strong thighs and masculine arms was brought; she let her hair loose and waved her arms about. With a pair of broomsticks in her fists, her harmonic dancing proved its mettle to lift the villagers into a spree of palpable ecstasy.
Now I sat before the girl for a second time. Tears rolled down her eyes; she opened her mouth to speak but not a word rolled out the stiff tongue. Her throat pipe was dry; rid of saliva, her gums had turned porous. With great trepidation, I took her hand between my palms; unfolded the tight fist and rubbed it with mine.
“I understand girl. It’s an involuntary reaction” with those words, I indicated that the mother to leave the room. Seven strong women entered the room; they all had doused themselves in bucketfuls of turmeric water
Twenty minutes later, the girl was struggling with all her might to break the many hands that were holding her tight. With a pair of tongs, I approached the girl; seven women were holding her down. Meditatively, I bent the leaves one after another; the girl’s cries had filled the room and were presently resonating. Finally, I plucked one small leaf as my hands shivered and I dropped the tongs. The girl screamed with the teeth clenched so tight that two of her upper jaw front teeth broke and pierced the lower jaw. It was as though, I had amputated her limb; she broke into fits and a concussion soon followed. Outside, men had besieged the clinic; little children were heehawing near the closed window. A pungent odour had gripped us all; noticing the need, nurse turned her heel towards the window, shooed the children and opened it. In a moment, sound of drumming and trumpeting drowned the room.
Two hours later, with a sidelong glance, I indicated to the mother and she helped the girl change into her tight cord corset and the sewn shut sleeved pullover. The involuntary reaction, I gathered from the mother, was restricted to the green branches.
“You can examine the rest of the body” the mother looked placidly into my eyes.
So I did. I took samples of her tissue, blood, urine…. Nurse and mother walked the girl with stiff limbs till the entrance; a mild cry here and there invoked a celebration as the crowd broke into chants and hymns of the bronze goddess. The two battlements ripped apart and the women lifted the girl high up on a wooden framed, iron grilled cot; the lady with broom sticks in her hand spearheaded the march back home.
That night, I sat crouched in my lab. I requested the nurse to crash at my place for the night; she carried out the tests. I travelled to the nearest city to meet a friend of mine; he was a passionate botanist. When the gravity of the matter sank into him, he agreed to run the tests overnight. Stamped between two great magnifying glasses, the plucked leaf told us a story. It was a leaf that manufactured organic compounds from CO2 and water; chlorophyll merrily danced under the microscope. Nothing fancy, it was a leaf and that was it. What was I to do with this piece of information? It was a disappointing start, nonetheless, I bid farewell to my friend and caught the last bus back home.
As the bus trundled along the deserted muddy road en route to the village, I fell asleep with the thoughts of the eventful day bearing upon my mind in full intensity. When I woke up at the destination, I alighted with mud walled lungs and a clear mind. At the lab, nurse had the test results spread out before my table. Sinking into the cushion-less chair, I ran my finger over the readings that were out of place. The metabolic rate, enzymes, lipids, amino acids, carbohydrates – all exhibited stability. This was disappointing; I was fast approaching a dead end.
“Doc. I made you some coffee” she was a nice girl. With wide lips, short forehead and plum cheeks, she was an attractive girl. Recently, she was engaged to get married. It was rather unbecoming of me to hold her up at night. I made my point, but she brushed the thought away. Briskly waved her hand in air and continued “My scientific curiosity won’t let me sleep in peace”
The least I could do was talk about my theory. She was a good natured girl with an air of scientific curiosity about her.
“I am working on a theory. I believe, the girl is infected with a virus”
Before I could proceed, the nurse tapped hard with her knuckles on the table before me. Wiping the coffee stains on her lips, she noted “A virus. Then it spreads. We have to identify if it’s airborne or by morrow we will have transformed ourselves” she cleared her throat as if to say something, then decided to pause without saying anything.
Resting the coffee mug on the operation table, I pointed to the blood stains on the bed sheet. “My examining the branch of her arm pit triggered an involuntary reaction.” By now I was convinced about it myself, so I proceeded with resolution “the reaction was strong enough to knock me sideways. The table is about eight feet away from the swivelling chair where she was seated. It was a powerful reaction. The virus must have infected the central nervous system”
To this, as if a bulb flickered in the dark corner of her mind’s room, the nurse exclaimed “Rabies”
I continued “Yes. Like Rabies, the virus must have infected the brain and caused acute encephalitis”
Another bulb flickered perhaps. Nurse mumbled under her breath “but the girl is not salivating. She is not biting” she was now talking to herself “what are the other symptoms of rabies? Yes, she has difficulty swallowing and speaking. That fits. She is aggressive and paranoid.” Putting the brief monologue to rest, she faced me with a pout of her lip. She rested her chin under the flat bed of her right palm whose elbow was perched delicately on the edge of the table before her. “What about the branches?” her pupils widened at this.
I had no theory for this. I knew that the metabolic activity of the girl’s body was tweaked with. Could not figure out how it was possible. “The virus has mutated to tweak the host’s metabolic activity to its benefit. The trouble is, I checked all the vitals of metabolism and there was no anomaly”
Nurse was scribbling something in the notebook before her. “You did not find an anomaly, because the virus has evolved into something more familiar”
I knew this, and I checked and rechecked. All the numbers were matching. With a sharp noise, the coffee mug on the table fell to the ground. She apologised and went into the other room. When she returned with a broomstick in one hand and dustbin in another, she reminded me of the strong thighed woman who was dancing with two brooms in her hand that morning. Then it struck me “the virus must have mutated into different forms; it could have evolved so fast that it supervised the basic metabolism now”
“You mean enzymes” My nurse was an intelligent girl. With the broom propped in her armpit, she squinted her eyes as if to let out a difficult thought. And she did let it out “but you said you found the enzymes stable.”
I concluded “yes, the number of enzymes is the same. I mean the virus has taken the role of enzymes. The real enzymes are no longer there. You see, enzymes regulate the metabolic pathways. They are the key to metabolism. If the virus has mutated to take the role of enzymes, then it can manipulate the host.” I rose from my chair, opened the window to inhale a whiff of cool air before the denouement. “I believe this rabies like virus deceptively replaces chemical reactions of metabolism with conversion of CO2 into organic compounds. Metabolism to photosynthesis”
Nurse, after some deliberation, succinctly, called the virus “Green Rabies”.
The next morning was the saddest day of my scientific career. Pouring scorn over my nurse’s scientific curiosity and the future of scientific establishment, the villagers decided to burn the teenage girl alive. I was told that the strong thighed woman was conveyed in her dream “the bronze goddess demands for the blood of her kin”. Before I could summon help from the city, before the sun furtively peered over the horizon, the girl was burnt alive. Apparently, the stiff limbed girl was packed in kerosene doused cotton saris rouged with turmeric, and tethered to the wooden cot with iron grills. Her mother’s uncontrollable sobs echoed in my clinic that morning when she visited me; she clung to an arm chair in the corner and banged her head into it.
Her helpless agitated state fizzled out my last night’s excitement of solving the mysterious case of branching armpits; study on green rabies could have revolutionised the scientific community. It could have been the next milestone after Watson and Crick’s discovery of the structure of DNA.
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