A Glass of boiled water, A Teaspoonful of Turmeric and a dash of Salt, mixed and drunken slowly

You know when you're dead. You know...when you're in deep shit. When you feel like you're staring down the end of the barrel, when you've pushed it a little too far, one too many times and you can see no way out. Fear and excitement pulses through you and keeps you alive. Also inside, dwells the fact that you may have to resign yourself to it, you're up to your neck in it, the game is up. It is time to submit to the greater force, prepare to meet your destiny, maker and the earth from which you have come. It's happened to me a few times....at school, at uni, at work. Whilst surfing, whilst climbing rock face, on a frozen waterfall....a few times in my life I have thought the game was up. I'd played well, I'd played hard. It was fun despite my impending demise. Fortunately, on those occasions, I didn't have to submit and resign from the game we call life, fully. As you can see I survived them all. On another occasion however, I was sure my game was up and it didn't feel good at all. This is the tale of how a glass of boiled water, a teaspoonful of turmeric and a dash of salt got me out of the deep shit I was in and saved my life.

Unable to move, unable to do anything for myself I had resigned myself to the possibility that I would be dead in the morning, the game was up. The bed upon which I lay was to be my deathbed. I would be buried in layers of quilts and blankets. I shivered and sweated through yet another day, feverish and delirious. There was no excitement this time and my fear had long since been drained. Stuff just oozed out of me including any sense of self-respect. The end was neigh and I felt alone in a way that I wasn't really enjoying. I was a long way from home. I was a long way from good medical care. I wished for my end to come and save me.

I can't remember when I first got sick, so I don't know how long it was that I had been lying on “the bed”, but it had been a number of days. I vaguely remember people came in and went out. There was some concern. I just lay there on my side, half asleep, being none too polite and very undignified. I was reduced to a pile of rattling bones and rubble. None of my body seemed connected, just pieces mixed in with a whole heap of garbage, tipped out from the truck, unwashed, unshaven, unsorted, disassembled. And that's the way I stayed for another seven days, unaware of anything, until, waking on the seventh day, I became aware of sunshine filling my room with light and warmth instead of the grey, cold, smelly fog that had lingered for so long. I had been saved. My game was not up. I had been saved by the careful care of my friend Duran, a glass of boiled water, turmeric and a dash of salt, mixed and poured into me slowly, glass after glass over the course of a week.

The country I was in was Nepal. Turmeric was my medicine. A warming spice, beautifully golden yellow, it comes from the root of the plant Curcuma longa and has been used in traditional Indian and Chinese medicine and cuisine for a very long time. Medicinally, turmerics amazing healing properties are reportedly helpful in restoring ones health or acting as a preventative for a large number of illnesses. A list I saw recently included flatulence, jaundice, menstrual difficulties, bloody urine, hemorrhage, toothache, bruises, chest pain, and colic. It is also said that Turmeric may also be effective in preventing or curing Alzheimer's disease, high cholesterol and associated heart disease, poor liver function, childhood leukemia, prostate cancer, colon cancer, cystic fibrosis, rheumatoid arthritis, and inflammatory bowel disease. I'm not sure which one of those or if any of those ailments ailed me. Right now I really don't care. I'm just glad to be here. Hot water and turmeric sits here with me and my dinner, just eaten was laced with turmeric spice. Tonight millions worldwide are probably sitting down to eat a meal laced with turmeric spice.

A transaction is done. Wearing a mans face, the young teenage boy measures the quantity of dazzling, golden yellow powder, turmeric, as requested. He bags it, and with the deft exchange of a magician and face of a poker player the transaction is completed. The next customer places their order and raises it some more. They must know the wonderful properties of the spice. Turmeric, boiling water and salt saved my life once.