Mother’s Milk

Madhu Ramnath

On one occasion, while living in a village in the Tulsi Dongri, a thorn got my foot. It was a kuvva thorn, known for the painful effect that follows quite soon after the tip breaks off inside the skin. Even the rind of its fruit is toxic to fish; they are dried and powdered and sprinkled in shallow pools to stupefy fish in the summer months.

Kuvva (Catunaregam spinosa) shares its place in the Coffee Family with many other plants found in the central Indian forest. Some of these are the choki (Anthocephalus cadamba) with it spreading branches and edible fruit, which is becoming uncommon; there are several kurlu’s (Gardenia spp.), some of which are eaten; the large mundi (Haldinia cordifolia) with its yellow wood suitable for carving the great drums of the adivasi people; the smaller mundi (Mitragyna parviflora) that flowers quite like its larger cousin; the common gunna (Hymenodictyon orixense) with excellent wood and whose leaves are important for the agricultural ceremonies; the almost absent ahl (Morinda tinctoria) that has been commercially exploited for years for the dye extracted from the root bark; and the Canthiums, Ixoras and Pavettas with their showy umbels of flowers. But among all these only the kuvva is armed with spines – not thorns – in the true sense of the word. They are up to 5 centimetres long, slender, and taper beautifully to the sharpest of tips, traditionally used for ear-piercing. The spiny twigs are laid across the trail to block the path of malevolent spirits. If I was a spirit I’d certainly watch out.

I initially neglected the thorn and wished it would just fall out of my foot but within a few days I needed a bamboo crutch to hobble about the village. I hopped about on the mostly rocky and undulating terrain of the village and each day the pain increased, the area around the wound becoming red and swollen. A few people suggested that they could extract the thorn by slicing off the skin around the thorn with a knife or arrow-head. I had been through such an operation before, with four people holding me down, but did not care to repeat that method. The pain in my foot continued to increase and kept me housebound.

During the couple of days of this hopeless situation somebody mentioned mother’s milk. Apparently,a few drops of mother’s milk poured over the spot with an embedded thorn, brought the thorn to the surface and was easily removed. I looked around for a mother.

Badie was one of the many young mothers with a baby then. She lived not far from where I stayed and I hopped over to her in the evening. She was lovely girl with a ready laugh sitting outside her hut suckling her baby, her hands busy making leaf-cups for the evening meal. I leaned against the fence and watched her full round breasts, one of which was occupied by the baby. I greeted her and asked what she was cooking for dinner.

“Kurdel”, she said. Yams.

“Can I have some milk?” I asked, pointing to her free breast. “I have a kuvva shaka in my foot.”

She looked at me amusedly, perhaps wondering whether I was pulling a fast one on her. But she had seen me hobble about these last few days, unable to go up the hill side to work. She made up her mind and took up a sal leaf, deftly stitched it into a cup, placed it under her free breast and squeezed, and handed me the milk! Grateful, I carefully hopped home with the leaf-cup and began the treatment. I went regularly to Badie for a few days to get my medicine and after about three days the area around the wound became slightly septic and eventually burst open, bringing out the cause of the problem.

A day later I threw away the bamboo crutch!