BookLover

“Rahul will not be coming to school even today, Mrs. Sharma”, said Nina. “He is still not keeping well.”

“He has been sick for more than a week, Mrs. Khanna”, said the school principal in a worried tone. “I hope there is nothing to worry.”

“No, the doctor says it’s the usual viral fever and Rahul should be fine in a day or two. He should be able to attend school from next week.”

“Hope he gets well soon. I will inform his class teacher about his leave.”

Nina thanked the Principal and hung up.

No sooner had she replaced the receiver than Rahul began coughing again. She rushed to him and held him, gently stroking his back. Though she appeared hopeful to the Principal that Rahul will get well soon, she had her own worries. It had been more than two weeks and Rahul had still not recovered. The doctor had prescribed heavy dose of antibiotics and that had made Rahul very weak. How much can a 7 year old take in, anyway? He had been on bed since day one. Neither did he feel like eating anything, nor did he feel like taking medicines. Nina had to coax him everyday that that was the last dose of medicine he had to take. It was the same scene everyday — Rahul would refuse to take medicine and Nina would coax him somehow.

The doctor had said that it was viral fever. The symptoms did point at it, but viral fever for 2 weeks seemed uncommon to Nina. Rahul had become so inactive — he would sleep all day and even refused to watch Tom and Jerry— and this was Nina’s main concern. He wouldn’t eat much which made him grow weaker day by day. He wouldn’t talk and answer by just nodding or shaking his head. Nina was getting worried with each passing day.

Rahul’s cough subsided a little and he sank back on the bed.

“Would you like some lemon juice, bittu?” Lemon juice with lots of sugar would give him a little energy, thought Nina.

As expected, Rahul just shook his head with his eyes closed. She gave him a glass of water, which too he refused to drink.

“Why are you acting like this Rahul? You will grow weaker if you don’t eat or drink anything”, Nina tried her trick again. “You drink this and you will get better and we will watch Spiderman together.”

These days Spiderman or Tom & Jerry had little influence on Rahul.

“Come on bittu, just take a few sips. Rahul is a good boy, right?” This time, Rahul didn’t even bother to shake his head.

She just sat there, thinking what to do next. Should she take Rahul to another doctor? This doctor’s medicine was not showing any effect – Rahul’s health showed no improvement. She was lost in her own thoughts when the door bell rang. It was her maid, Shantabai.

Shantabai could clearly make out by looking at Nina’s worried expression that Rahul was still not well.

“How is baba, memsaab?”

“He has still not recovered Shantabai”, said Nina in a bored voice.

“Memsaab, if you don’t mind, can I suggest something?”

Nina was in no mood to listen to Shantabai’s nonsense talk. But, she couldn’t say so on her face. “Yes, tell me”.

“I think someone has cast an evil eye on baba. That’s the reason why his fever is not going down.”

“What! What evil eye? What do you mean Shantabai?”

“It happens all the time with kids, memsaab. They go to school, go out to play, anybody could cast an evil eye on them. And we won’t even know who did that. You just do as I say and baba will be fine within minutes.”

“What am I supposed to do?”

Shantabai explained the remedy for warding off the evil eye and Nina was shocked – do I have to do that to Rahul?

“Okay, okay. I will do that,” said Nina.

“Remember memsaab, you have to do it during sunset only. If you don’t do it today, you can do it only tomorrow.”

Nina was lost in thoughts again. Evil eye? And to get rid of it, she has to use the broom? And her sandal? She couldn’t do that to her own son!

She was preoccupied with this thought for the whole of the day. Every time she looked at her son, her heart would leap out for him. She couldn’t see her son bed ridden like this. She preferred the mischievous Rahul any day to this ill, inactive boy. Should she heed to Shantabai’s advice? Should she put her son through all that? But, the doctor had said he will be better soon. Any day now, he had said. How long did she have to wait to see her son play again? She couldn’t bear to see her son suffer like this. After a lot of yes or no, she decided to do it and be done with it.

She took the broom and her sandal to Rahul’s room. Rahul was fast asleep. As instructed by Shantabai, she took the broom and circled it around her son nine times, spit on it and threw it on the floor. She did the same with her sandal also. She did everything hurriedly as if she was doing something wrong. Hopefully, Rahul should be fine by tomorrow, she thought.

Next day, Nina arose thinking guiltily of her previous day’s little adventure. Was she stupid enough to listen to her illiterate maid? Did she really do all that to Rahul? She couldn’t believe it! Everything seemed hazy in her memory. She sat there lost in her thoughts when the door opened and Rahul came running to her. Was he smiling or was she dreaming with her eyes open? Rahul – actually smiling? He was fine? She took him in her arms and showered him with kisses. She was so happy to see her son like this.

“Mommy, can I go to Nitin’s house and tell him that I will go to school with him today?”

“Sure honey.”

She was so relieved. Rahul was fine and there was nothing more she wanted. Was it because of what she did or was it the doctor’s medicines? Rahul had been taking the medicine for two weeks now and it could have finally worked on him! Or it could be the broom! Was her son really the victim of an evil eye? Was there something like casting an evil eye or was it just co-incidence? Whatever it was, Rahul was fine now and that’s all she wanted. Call it medicine or call it miracle – the outcome was the same!

gohn67

Hey Sanyuja,
I found this to be a very interesting read. I like hte implementation of Indian culture in this.

Is Evil Eye a real superstition they have in India?


I liked your message in this story too. But it felt like you made it too easy for us, the reader, to figure out what you were trying to show us.
Becuase this last paragraph you seem to tell us exactly what your purpose was.

But I really do like the idea of what you were trying to convey.

There were a few sentences that were awkwardly written, but at the moment I'm bit tired to point them out. I think it has to do with English being your second language, more than anything.

Like, this would be written "He had been in bed since..."
Strange, it would make sense for "on the" bed, but that's how it's done in english. Strange huh?

The middle sentence here is kind of telling. Becuase the next paragraph after that, shows it. That he's not interested in Spiderman.

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BookLover

Thanks for the comments gohn.

Oh yes it is. Its quite prevalent too. Whenever I fall sick, my grandma does that to me -- whatever Nina does in the story! Actually, the ritual is more tedious, I didn't put in all that here. And I might sound stupid - but it works! Call me superstitious, but that really works.

Oh you mean, should I skip the ramblings? The intention of that last paragraph was to bring out Nina's thoughts. And the last sentence is actually the assertion in Nina's mind.

May be, you can point them out to me when you find time? I am really interested in finding out what these issues are so that I don't repeat them. Its ok if you are busy gohn, I will give it a thorough read myself.

Ok, then I will remove it.

Thanks once again for you comments, gohn!

Chris Miller

Hi sanyuja:

You asked gohn for some more detailed crits. So I hope you don’t mind if I offer a few.

This is wrong from several perspectives. At least “will” should be “would” but also the phrasing is awkward. I would write, “Though she projected hope, she had her worries.” This also fixes the POV problem. You hop into the head of the principal as written, when the POV is of the mother.

“doses”
"antibiotics and that" = "antibiotics, and they"

Too verbose and awkward. “He did not feel like eating or taking medicine.” Also the tense of this whole paragraph could be cleaned up. A lot of it is in the past perfect. Then it switches into the simple past, making the prose unnecessarily complicated and awkward. Simplify.


Rahul—actually smiling?

You use “will” and “should” in place of “would” in a couple places.

Some of your “telling” is redundant/repetitive. Some, I suspect could be omitted or pared back. You might consider using dialogue (i.e. letting Rahul speak) instead of always telling us how he feels and appears. Same for the mother and other characters. Let the dialect shine through this way.

I would suggest you go through and try to simplify your sentences a bit by splitting them into their simplest clauses. Often the two you use in a sentence don’t quite work together.

But, having said all this, I feel I should add that a lot of the beauty of this very interesting story comes from your setting and that your vernacular is part of the setting. Your English is a little different than mine (I run into this on UK forums all the time). To change it too much may detract from your piece.

Thanks for sharing this mystical and thought-provoking story.

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gohn67

That's cool. It's always interesting to learn about different cultures and stuff like this.

There's nothing wrong with showing the characters thoughts. But for the last paragraph it seems kind of redundant, kind of telling. You know, like a recap of the whole story.

Grammatically this sentence is fine. But for me as a reader, I could tell that she was relieved without you saying it. You showed us how much she cared about the health of Rahul throughout the whole story. So both these sentences, seem like a summary of what happened.

And this part kind of seems like the message you were trying to convey to the reader. Is Evil Eye, just a superstition? or is it real? It's kind of like battle with the past and future, the oldways and new ways, technology versus age old habits. Personally I really like this idea.

Maybe instead of making her think this, you could add another character. Either a husband or maybe a teenage daughter/son. And have them not believe in "Evil Eye" and have them believe in Medicine. Just an Idea.

---
Keep this in mind for the following Crits, since the sentences I am pointing out are not necessarily wrong, but just read different than what I'm used to.

Like here, instead of keeping, I would use feeling.

This is how I would right it, I hope there is nothing to worry about.

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BookLover

Thanks a lot for the comments, Chris! And thank you too gohn. I am glad you two liked the story.

English being my second language, I am always accused of grammatical mistakes, like changing tenses and misusing should or will. Thanks for pointing out the mistakes. I will correct them and I will post the revised version.

Thanks once again!

eggo

Hi sanyuja,

I liked the story. It was a dreamlike story, that turned its back on modern medicine and embraced the ancient mojo. It gave a nice view into that way of thinking.
Don't feel too bad about the grammar, I only have one language to write and I screw that up on a regular basis.

BookLover

Thanks for reading the story eggo. Glad you liked it.

No, I don't bother too much about grammar - its evident in the sotry, isnt it

But, since I have adopted English as my writing language, I better keep it clean, right? I shouldn't kill the language for my writing sake

Anarkos

Most real technical criticism has been covered already. I was neutral to the story myself. It just wasn't my thing, though it wasn't at all bad.

One technical detail that irked me though was that you said that Rahul had a "viral fever" but was prescribed antibiotics. Antibiotics kill bacteria, not viruses. No sensible doctor would give a child with a viral infection antibiotics. It would be a waste, and could help build up resistances in any bacteria present. If a doctor gave him anything, it could well just be a placebo.

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BookLover

Thanks for reading the story.

Well, guess what! I know a doctor who actually prescribed antibiotics to my friend saying, 'you have viral fever, take these antibiotics!'

I will remove the 'viral' from the 'viral fever' and it should be fine.

Thanks once again Anarkos.

Chris Miller

She is right Araknos, a lot of older dumbshit docs still prescribe antibiotics for viral infections (like for even colds). They are "worried" about secondary infections and also trying to come to terms with their own feelings of helplessness and uselessness, and maybe make a few bucks.

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Anarkos

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Wyndstar

My brother's wife is from India, and she does this kind of thing all the time, and I have to agree; sometimes it actually works. Its utterly odd.

Since everyone has already given serious critque already, I'll just say that I enjoy this tale the most in how the mother was portrayed. Rather than it being dreamlike, it felt very authentic. Your kid can drive you crazy, but when they're sick, its harder, and you'll try anything, even if you think its stupid.

This was very enjoyable.

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BookLover

True Wyndstar. Its very common for somebody from India. Many people don't treat it as superstition. It comes naturally to them.

semtecks

Good story. I've heard of the evil eye a couple of times before. Lots of countries in europe use it to ward off evil. But i remember one time when i was little. a gypsy came on to my mother and asked her to buy something. My mother said no, and the gypsy woman did something funny with her hand. I asked my mother later on what the gesture meant, and she told me the woman had cast the evil eye, which creeped me out.

Theres some interesting references to Indian culture in here. I.E memsaab, bittu. It adds a sort of depth.

Oh, and i wouldn't worry about the anti-biotic thing, maybe you could mention in the story that antibiotics wouldn't work; thatway you can point at the ineptitude of modern medicine compared to the superstions of the maid.

Maybe you could stand to expand it. for example, something could happen afterward. Maybe the maid wants payment for her suggestion. Or the spell to ward off the evil eye requires something in return. I don't know some kindof reversal. It's a good story but it doesn't feel quite complete yet.

semtecks

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