I have no memories of my birth. Not even the previous one. I am told that I arrived a fortnight early and was trying to crawl back while the nurse was trying to extract me. May be I had realized my mistake of being early but I guess, once started, the process can not be stopped. So arrive I did, in the labour room of local government hospital. I had much grown nails on my fingers, may be that was the reason I wanted to be out, to be manicured. That makes me hygiene conscious by birth.
But it’s a challenge to be hygiene conscious early in life till one is potty or loo trained. That’s where the ingenuity of mothers or tailors or whosoever came handy. The pants or the equivalent of that for the toddler, had a big hole or opening where it mattered. So that made all the excreta, if that is the right word, fall on bed,floor, lap or wherever. My concern so many years later is – what is more hygienic, keeping the whole thing contained and washing the pants and the kid OR cleaning the whole house if the toddler happens to toddle around the house ? Of course, diapers were still in R&D lab around that time.
After few months and years, when the brain started registering things more than crying for the feed or need for hygiene, I realized I have two elder sisters. Both were nice to me while I was little. So whatever I can relate about my early life, comes from my parents and my sisters. I am told I used to cry and lie on floor if I was denied anything that I fancied. No floor was discriminated against, it could be neat and germ free floor of home or the dirtiest road side thing. I have to believe that because I don’t remember that period. But my interpretation of the act is that- I wanted to convey even at that early stage that I am basically a down to earth fellow.