yesteryear musings (8) - practices

One of the practices of yesteryears that has gone extinct is the half-yearly ritual called purgative. It is scheduled usually on a Sunday. The process starts the previous day with an oil bath. On the D-day you get up early and you are greeted with about 100ml of castor oil slightly heated. It is a highly viscous liquid with a bad odour (later deodorized versions appeared). Occasionally it is mixed with milk and delivered. You have to consume it in one swallow, closing your nose if required. Then you need to jump up and down half a dozen times from a stool or staircase - the idea is to make sure that like Neelakanta you don't retain it in your throat but allow it to travel all the way to its destination. The number of visits to the WC is monitored and if it falls below the prescribed limit, an additional dose is administered. Lunch on that day is rice with a hot-water-like rasam (sans lentils and spices except for garnishing with jeera seeds). At night you have a feast comprising vattal kuzhambu and parippu thogayal. You then await the next instalment six months down the line. In later years it was replaced by consuming two tablespoonfuls of Milk of Magnesia at night. I do not know why the need for periodical cleansing of the stomach has disappeared today.