There are two things about me that are certain. One, my appetite is colossal. Two, my hair is even more colossal. The former existed before The Event. The latter, perhaps exacerbated by it.
Since I have no recollection of The Event, I have investigated it like any journalist would. Firstly, by interviewing witnesses. Secondly — given my family’s hobby for embellishment — by corroborating the facts. I am not fully confident of either, but recorded the circumstances told mainly by my mother (who I have, thankfully, come to find reliable over the years).
The Event I’m referring to happened when I was a somewhat portly, one-and-half year-old. I recall a distinct fascination with food and three-point-plug sockets. The food was forcibly curtailed by my doctor and a rigid skimmed-milk diet. The allure of the three-point-plug socket, however, remained unrestrained: poke the top hole with something sharp, and the bottom two recede. No need for Fisher-Price. Endless fun.
Except when the poking object happens to be your uncle’s car key. Which is what I used.
It was the evening before my cousin’s wedding, and everyone in my grandmother’s house was abuzz with busy-ness. All except me.
Seldom was there a moment when I wasn’t bulldozing the house with intent. Yet somehow, there I was. Quiet and still.
My nanny called my name. No response. She called again. Nothing. Scanning each room carefully, she finally came upon me: sitting beneath the ironing table. Crouching, facing the wall, surely up to mischief.
Bending forward, she tapped my shoulder, when suddenly a bolt zapped through her spine, jolting both of us backwards. Wobbling to her feet, she gathered me, unconscious and limp.
Was I choking on something? My mother held me upside down from my feet. Nothing.
Had I fainted? Splashes of water to revive me. Nothing.
As my face darkened into deeper shades of navy, it became frighteningly evident that I had suffered an electric shock. The heat of electrocution melted my uncle’s key through my toddler hand, leaving a gaping hole. No heartbeat.
Panic. And time for prayer.
Qurans emerged, and surah recitations began. One person headed to church to light a candle. Another vowed to visit his mandir.
All except my uncle. My savior. He administered CPR. Nothing.
As one cousin struggled to calm my mother — who was now barely consolable — my uncle herded me, along with his wife and my grandmother, into his car. With one hand on the steering wheel, the other massaging my chest to revive my heart, he raced to the hospital.
How long had I been without a heartbeat? More than an hour, at least? My grandmother declared I was “no longer”. But my savior persisted.
Just as they reached the hospital, a sound. The heartbeat was back. But then, convulsions.
There was no pediatrician in the hospital in the evenings. But this evening, Dr. Sultan’s hopes of a quiet dinner at home were promptly disrupted by my uncle, who burst through his door and dragged him back to work.
By this point, another aunt picked up my mother and took her to the hospital. They got there just in time to experience what my mother described as “the worst part”. A shot from Dr. Sultan sent me shrieking, making “the most un-human sound”, followed by violent convulsions. And then, a deep coma.
“Even if, by some miracle, your daughter wakes up from this, she will be vegetated,” the doctors warned my mother. “No child’s brain can survive without oxygen for that long.”
Heartbroken, my mother and my aunt lay on the floor beside my hospital cot. There was nothing left to do now, but pray… and wait. For how long, they didn’t know.
13 hours later… another sound… or was that a word?
“Ma, mamon… keedha.”
Startled, my mother and aunt watched me clenching the side of the cot, attempting to lift my plump body. But those three words instantly assured them that I was fully back to normal: “mother, aunt… hungry.”
Not only had I recognized them, but I was clear about what mattered most to me: my next meal. In my young life — forged by a ravenous appetite from birth — there was no greater motivation than food to wake me from a coma. Not even electrocution could keep me from it.
It’s a miracle, they cried. And it seemed it was.
But over the next couple of years… there was a side effect: I could tell the future.
“So Ma’s picking up from school in a taxi, today?” I asked my father. “What do you mean? I always pick you up from school in our car,” he replied. But that day, he didn’t. A minor car accident meant my mother picked me up from school… in a taxi.
“You’re not getting married,” I announced to my mother’s best friend, who was about to wed her soulmate, the love of her life. “What? What do you mean?” Sadly, I was right. It didn’t happen.
Every day, more incidents that I predicted came true. Soon, people lined up to see the miracle child… Will I be rich? Who will I marry? Tell me, Leone.
Eventually my mother grew irritated and put an end to it. “Stop treating my child like a freak,” she declared. Although, no one could stop me from talking to my family.
“Wow, what a big storm,” I’d shout to my cousin. “Storm? It’s a beautiful sunny day.” Minutes later…. a thunderous storm beat against our windows.
“Why are you lying there like Cleopatra?” I said one day to another cousin, who was reclining on my grandmother’s bed… well, like… Cleopatra. “How does a three-year-old know who Cleopatra is… or even how to say it!”
My mother says I was quite the clairvoyant well into my school years. She read an article in Newsweek that said electric shocks in children can trigger their “sixth sense”. Over time, it wears off, the article said.
And it did. I don’t remember much of my soothsaying days. But I did continue to have dreams that came true through my teens.
Now, however, I can safely say that I have no telepathic tendencies.
In fact, the only two remnants of The Event are my deep love of food and my head of hair, which prompts sporadic “err…stick your hand in a socket?” comments from cousins.
Oh… and yes, I still have a strange fascination with three-point-plugs…
*If you’re unfamiliar with a three-point/pin plug socket, it’s a 220 voltage plug socket, with three electrical points in a triangular shape. A three-point plug fits perfectly. But if you have a 2-point plug, you need to poke the top hole, to allow the lower two to work.
