Heart and Soul: My parents' effective home remedies

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My parents lived in Seremban above a hardware store.

When their fourth son was a year old, he contracted typhoid fever. Though he recovered, he was extremely weak, having a poor appetite. A British doctor suggested that only a sea voyage would help the boy regain his appetite.

Not having sufficient funds for this, my father auctioned off several household items. He sent my mother and the four children by ship to Ceylon. The money was very little, hence the family travelled steerage, i.e. as deck passengers.

The trip took almost a month but, as the doctor had predicted, the child’s appetite improved and when they returned home two months later, he was in good health. Of course my mother was glad of this opportunity to spend time with her parents, siblings, kith and kin in her birth village of Tholpuram, in Jaffna, Sri Lanka.

Fast-forward from 1930 to 1952.

At my parents’ first visit to my home, my mother was pleased to see an old wardrobe in my bedroom. “That is a cupboard your father-in-law bought at our auction in 1930!” Unbelievable!

By 1933, there were six children at home.

During the Second World War, when Japan invaded Malaya in December 1941, many food items were not available and our life turned into "eat what is given without complaints". We suffered from various health problems, for which medicines were not available. With six children having various complaints, one after the other, mum had her hands full indeed!

We had gumboils, possibly because toothpaste was not available, allowing bacteria to breed in our mouths. Mum’s remedy was to pour about one tablespoon of gingelly oil into our mouths, which we swished around for about 20 minutes. This was done every two hours,and the painful gumboils disappeared! Years later, the western world called this "oil pulling" in the Internet.

There were no proper shoes available, only sandals made of rubber. We school-going kids soon developed soreness which was later referred to as "Singapore foot". Sometimes our toes would get stuck and when we forced them apart, they would bleed.

After trying several home-made remedies, mum asked my father to give her a can of Jeyes Fluid (now called Jaypine) from his hardware store. She lined us up and dribbled some of this on the sore spots. It worked like magic and all the raw soreness disappeared in a few days. My mum was illiterate but she was full of knowledge!

During the three-and-a-half years of Japanese occupation of Malaya, some of us contracted dengue fever. The doctor treated us with whatever medication was available during those difficult times but someone told mum about a remedy.

She begged her friends who had papaya trees in their gardens to send her some leaves. She boiled these and made us drink the water by lacing it with gula melaka, as sugar was a rationed item. Gradually, the fever left us but we felt terribly weak. Mum had the arduous task of preparing food, especially soups, to build up our strength.

When we caught a cold which turned into bronchitis, mum fed us a concoction made from a combination of coriander seeds, cumin, basil, dried ginger and omum (caraway seeds). These were pounded, then boiled. The strained concoction had to be drunk while it was still rather hot.

Then she would put some embers from the fireplace into an earthen container, hold a betel leaf over this and gently place it on our chest to dissolve the phlegm, or to our necks to heal the pain of a sore throat.

For a high fever, she borrowed a rubber ice-bag, sent my brothers to a restaurant for ice cubes, which she put into the bag before applying it to various parts of our bodies. (In those days people did not have refrigerators hence, no ice-cubes!) You must realise that there was no Panadol or aspirin available then.

Attending the Tamil school at the age of four, I had collected lice and mother soon spotted the dreaded pests in my hair. Straightaway the barber was sent for and, banished downstairs to be seated on a stool, with a cloth over my shoulders, my head was shaved bald!

To be sure, I cried and hid from people for a while but, as is usual with small children, I soon got over feeling shy. It was worth it, as I was rid of those horrid lice!

This was a common nuisance in those days and I had a repeat "invasion" when I was about 10 years of age. As I was too grown-up to be shaved bald, Papa would sit on the floor, spread a white cloth in front of him on which I would sit. Then he would proceed to use two types of combs, one for the mature lice looking like the weevils found in old rice, and another narrow, long comb for the eggs which clung to the hair.

As the mature lice fell on the white cloth, Papa would crush them with his finger-nails. The second action was to remove the nits, i.e. eggs of the lice. It involved squeezing the teeth of the long comb and drawing the hair through the close knit teeth. It was rather painful and when I groaned, my dear father would croon some song to soothe me.

Thanks to his painstaking effort, I was soon rid of the pests! I must mention that in this matter, Ammah left me strictly in my father’s charge because, I am sure, she feared it spreading to her hair! Today there are hair treatments one can buy, to remove lice and nits easily.