Unfortunately my sharpest memory of boarding school is not very pleasant. I contracted Hepatitis A in my second year there, and it was a pretty bad attack. I remember being repeatedly sick and being put in the infirmary (yes, that's what our sick room was called). The worst thing about Hep A during it's worst stages, is the total lack of interest in food and the puking! The time I got it was near Easter and my mother had ordered for a big chocolate Easter egg to be delivered to me. The sisters very kindly brought me a piece of the egg. I took a bite of it, more because my eyes were hungry, and probably brought it all up! I couldn't look at chocolate Easter eggs for quite a while.

After about 10 days there, (so it seems to me now), my mother landed up all the way from Bombay, to take care of her very sick chick. What a relief it was to see her! She promptly got permission for me to leave the hostel till the doctor certified me free of the Hep A. She then stayed with me somewhere nearby for around 2 weeks, by which time I could atleast look at food without loathing. She then brought me down to Kerala for our traditional treatment of Hep A. But by then I was rid of the Hep A virus. I went back to school around a week later.