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elsewhereuniversity · 7 years

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Darling

Crossposted to AO3

In the East Hall, the Gentry are called Takers-And-Givers. Marie had her best 2B pencil stolen only to find three packs of pencils - different hardnesses, sizes, colours - in her room that evening. Charley’s bottles of milk were stolen in the first week of term but now their whole flat gets weekly deliveries of dairy far better than any bought at the local shops. Sanjeet’s flowers were decimated a week before Valentines, but now they’re the best and brightest blooming flowers on campus.

First they Take and then, later, they Give, something of equal or more value. No one seems to know how or why, it just is, until the new kid arrives in halls - a late transfer, some incident at their last uni dogging her steps, giving her haunted eyes and probably-nightmares and arms clutched close around her chest whenever someone looms too close.

When people ask, she says to call her Ravenna. That that’s not her name, but her actual name isn’t one she trusts anymore, that it makes her feel unsafe in her own skin. So everyone in the Hall calls her Ravenna, or, sometimes, Blackbird if they know her well enough, and give her space.

She hates beyond hate to be touched.

–

Marie sees her one day, within touching distance of one of the Takers-and-Givers often seen around East Hall. They go by Darling - an odd moniker for a six foot creature with a greenish cast to their skin and a bird’s nest of hair, but no one would ever dare say anything to them. They stand just within arms-reach of Ravenna, watching down at the short girl with half-narrowed eyes.

“I don’t want to be afraid,” Ravenna is saying. “I'm sick of it. They say you can help with that, that you can take something away and give something in return. Can you take away my fear?”

Marie almost bolts down the hall to Ravenna, almost warns her against making a deal with the Takers-And-Givers, almost warns her against even mentioning the distance they are from normal but Darling only smiles gently, politely, not the predatory way they had when Marcus from Sumner’s Hall had tried to strike a bargain.

“No one can take your fear,” Darling says. “It’s yours. But if you give me a taste of it then I will give you protection when you are fearing.”

Marie starts backing down the hall, back towards her room, but she still sees Ravenna pause, nod, and go completely rigid as Darling bends their head to gently kiss her.

A wind blows down the hall, smelling of chickens and straw and Michaelmas daisies and Darling is vanished.

–

We need milk [Sent: 10 minutes ago | From: Maxie]

Please Charley, they’re puking everywhere [Sent: 5 minutes ago | From: Maxie]

CHARLEY. WAKE THE FUCK UP [Sent: 2 minutes ago | From: Maxie]

Charleeeeey. Please? I’ll pay for your coffee for the next week? [Sent: 30 seconds ago | From: Maxie]

Charley rolls out of bed and groans. Rubs their eyes with the heel of one hand and pulls on some trackie bottoms, a hoodie. Sticks their phone into their pocket, and their dorm card so they can get back into the halls.

Sumner’s Hall isn’t that far away but also: it’s cold out. They could text one of the others to let them back in, or make a libation of milk and see if Angrboda will use her tricks to get them back in the hall, but honestly, they can’t be fucked. The deal with Angrboda for free dairy is good, and they’re not about to add more clauses. Not after how much it had cost to pay Petey the Law Student for their help last time they’d made a change.

There’s crocs near the door, which they toe into and then pace down to the kitchen area to the fridge. Pull out a two-pint thing of milk, check their pockets again and sigh.

“Maxie,” they mutter. “You are paying for my coffee for a fortnight.”

–

When they get to Maxie’s floor in Sumner’s they see what the fuss is about. It’s a party, which is to be expected on a Friday night, and while Maxie is great at stocking up on bread, and they’d made a deal so their tapwater is the best and cleanest stuff on campus, Maxie never has enough milk.

Sometimes Charley thinks that was the price Maxie paid for the water.

The pukers are gathered in the kitchen, an array of bowls on the table, and all of them hunched over one. Maxie grins when they spot Charley, heedless of the flowers falling out of their tight curls.

“My friend,” they say. “You are the best. Stay awhile?”

Usually Charley wouldn’t but tonight, for some reason, they do. They help Maxie take care of the pukers for a few minutes, and then they go to circulate, catching up with Maxie’s flatmates.

It’s while they’re doing this they see Ravenna, her fall of dark hair and closed-in posture instantly recognisable and made worrying by the guy leaning over her, getting in her space.

Charley’s pushing through the crowd when the guy yells, turns, and Ravenna vanishes.

They cast their eyes around, searching desperately - Ravenna was one of theirs, an East Hall-er, and she was from their flat, and everyone could tell something had happened, that she had something bad in her past. Their whole flat had met a week after she’d arrived to quietly promise to make sure she was safe as far as they could manage.

They spot Ravenna in an alcove by the door. Her head’s tilted back against the wall and opposite her–

Is that Darling?

It is, six-foot Darling, built like a beanpole, green-tinted skin to match and they’re giving her space apart from a too-many-times-jointed hand on Ravenna’s wrist.

“Are you all right?” Darling is asking. “I wasn’t sure if I got here in time.”

Charley sees Ravenna draw a deep breath in and nod. As she leans forwards and Darling - slowly, very very slowly - wraps an arm around her shoulders, Charley meets Darling’s eyes.

Charley knows Darling is quite aware of the iron nails they keep in their bag. They’d burned Darling’s hand when they’d tried to Take some sugar sachets back in December.

Darling nods.

–

They all see it, in the flat. Whatever happened to Ravenna, all her nightmares, they still dog her steps, but Darling dogs those - dogs the memories, the nightmares, and provides protection whenever someone looms too close.

Darling even appears in the kitchen area one morning when Marie reaches too close to Ravenna to take a pencil - suddenly a shadow solidified into the dark-greenish skin of Darling, a shimmering reflection of light became Darling’s smile.

“Give her space,” they’d said, simply, and Marie retracted her arm.

Ravenna had smiled, reached back to Darling. “I know they won’t hurt me, Darling,” she’d said.

“Maybe,” Darling had said, taking Ravenna’s offered hand, “But I could taste your fear.”

Ravenna had smiled again, squeezed Darling’s hand.

Darling’s there in classes as well, at parties. In the library, in the cafe, even in the shops. When Sanjeet joins Ravenna to go to the gym he sees Darling solidify for a moment in a shadow by the door, unable to enter a place so full of iron.

Keep her safe, Darling mouths to Sanjeet, and he nods back.

She’s from their flat after all. One of theirs to keep safe.

–

“Mavourneen,” Darling whispers to Ravenna one day. They’re sat in Ravenna’s room, Ravenna in her chair, Darling giving her space and perched on the very edge of her bed. “That’s my name.”

Ravenna’s hands cup her elbows, and she’s all curled into herself on the chair. Less curled into herself than she had been at the beginning, before she’d approached them and made the deal, but Darling can still see how tension rests in her bones, how fear itches at the back of her neck.

There’s an unspoken promise in giving Ravenna their name, and they wonder if she quite understands it. She understood enough to ask for the deal, to make very clear what she was asking for and to only accept will give you protection, not can. But she kept no iron with her, no salt, not a single charm or medallion to confer protection.

“I don’t know if my old name is really mine anymore,” Ravenna says, and they know she’s understood. “It doesn’t feel right, not since-” she pauses, swallows. “Not since what happened.”

They offer a hand, palm up. Ravenna takes it, slowly, and for a moment there is fear before her thumb runs over their skin and she relaxes.

“What she did to you,” Darling says gently. “What she did was wrong.”

Ravenna smiles tentatively. “I think,” she says, “Ravenna is my real name, now. My true name.”

Darling smiles, showing far too many teeth. Their teeth are almost catlike, thin and almost translucent some of them.

“Mavourneen,” Ravenna says softly, sounding it out. “That’s a lovely name. Does it mean anything?”

Darling smiles wider, shows more teeth. “It means,” they say, “Darling.”

Ravenna’s delighted laugh is the sweetest thing they’ve heard in years.

[x]

#stories #essayofthoughts #this is so lovely #darling #ravenna #submission

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ankhrah · 6 years

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Drumstick Plants – Battling Fluorosis!

Flouride levels in 493 villages are exceptionally high.

Fluorosis Se Jung aims to help residents protect themselves from its effects.

Soumya Mathew

In August, Palak Ramesh showed no hesitation when the teacher at her government school in Haryana’s Khedli Khurd village asked her to spell out her name. But the next moment, when the 13-year-old student was asked to demonstrate a few stretching exercises, her confidence ebbed. When Ramesh tries to touch her ankles or stretch her arms, her joints, back and shoulders ache. That pain seemed bearable. A more agonising wave of embarrassment swept over Ramesh and the quiet group of teenagers who had gathered around her when they smiled – they were conscious of their yellowing teeth. It’s not that they had ignored good dental-health practices. “Hum har din brush karte hai,” protested Ramesh’s friend Arseena Vakeel. We brush every day. They are among the thousands of people in the region who suffer from dental fluorosis, or mottling of teeth, one of the most common effects of drinking fluoride-contaminated water. In March, the fluoride level in the groundwater of their village was recorded as 14 mg/litre of water. A level of 1mg or less is considered normal. Fluoride is the second-most common pollutant of drinking water in India, said Tarit Roychowdhury, an associate professor at the School of Environmental Studies, Jadavpur University Click To Tweet. “Upon entering the body, the fluoride attacks calcium-enriched organs like teeth and bones – the former more than the latter,” he said. “This is why dental fluorosis is so common.”

Palak Ramesh.

Khedli Khurd is one of the 439 villages in Haryana’s Mewat district that has to deal with excessive flouride in its groundwater. Over the years, NGOs have attempted to make villagers aware of the problem and to install water filteration plants to help remedy it. In August, Alfaz-E-Mewat FM 107.8, a popular community radio station in Mewat, launched what is perhaps the most innovative effort to keep residents healthy. It kicked off a show titled Fluorosis Se Jung, or Battle with Fluorosis. This eight-episode series includes dramas and question and answer sessions with doctors. The station has also handed out 8,500 moringa, or drumstick, plants, a species that is believed to help to reduce the effects of fluorosis. According to a study published by the Journal of Industrial Pollution Control in 2007, moringa is an effective “defluoridating agent”. It recommended that both Moringa pod as well as the leaves should be part of the diet of people living in fluorotic areas.

How it started

The idea for the initiative struck Faakat Hussain, a radio jockey at Alfaz-E-Mewat who hosts a question and answer show Tere Mere Man Ki Baat in March, when he received an on-air call from a shepherd from Khedli Khurd. The caller’s 40-year-old wife was finding it increasingly difficult to carry out her daily chores. When she worked in the fields or collected grass from the nearby forest, both tasks involved a lot of walking, her knees hurt. During the course of that conversation, Hussain realised it was a problem faced by many women in Khedli Khurd. Shortly after, he visited the village with Dr Rizwan Khan, the district consultant appointed in Mewat under the National Programme for Prevention and Control of Fluorosis. They took a water sample from the village and Khan had it examined it in a laboratory at Al-Afiya General Hospital, Mewat. The water was found unfit for consumption.

(Left to right) Pritam Singh, a teacher at the government middle school in Khedli Khurd, Faakat Hussain, a radio jockey at Alfaz-E-Mewat and Sohrab Khan, a teacher at the school.

Since there was no awareness about fluorosis in the village, Hussain and his team decided to use the radio – the most common medium of entertainment and information in the district – to talk about the medical condition. The 20-minute sessions, hosted by Hussain, with Khan and Sanjeet Panesar, assistant professor in the Department of Medicine at Shaheed Hasan Khan Mewati Government Medical College, are brodcast every Tuesday at 10.50 am. The show is repeated at 9.35 pm the same day. Among the segments it has featured is a play on Fluorosis Se Jung, with a man talking to his friends about how his wife struggles with swollen, aching joints. His friends advise him to head to the Alfaz-E-Mewat station and pick up some moringa plants to help his wife. The plays and songs are aired twice or thrice every day. “A lot of them still don’t know what fluorosis is, so we try to communicate in ways they understand,” said Hussain. “For them, their knees and ankles swelling translates to ‘ghutno mei hawa bharna’ or air getting filled in their joints.”Moringa is a good cure for that [problem] and eventually explain fluorosis to them." Alfaz-E-Mewat was established in 2012 by the Sehgal Foundation, a charitable trust that is conducting research on flourosis. Lalit Mohan Sharma of the foundation says that the spread of the disease has its origins in region’s depleting groundwater levels. As residents dig borewells that are ever deeper, they are reaching water contaminated by fluoride-rich rocks.

The deeper the borewell, the greater the fluoride levels in the groundwater. Photo credit: ABHIJEET / Wikimedia Commons [CC Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported].

“Minerals such as calcium, magnesium and vitamin A and C are excellent warriors against fluorosis,” said Sharma. “They are readily available in milk and milk products. Since the villagers in Mewat cannot afford milk on a daily basis, we found [that] the inexpensive alternative of moringa plants [were] quite effective too.” Besides packing in nutrients, studies have shown that moringa seeds are adsorbents that can potentially remove fluoride from water. Click To Tweet On August 7, Alfaz-E-Mewat invited several villagers, including children, to the community radio’s centre at Ghaghas village for a session conducted by Sharma, Khan and Panesar. They explained to the villagers that swollen joints were more than just a case of “hawa bharna” or air getting filled in their joints. Within two weeks after the session, Hussain says, the first batch of moringa plants was almost over.

The future

Mewat was added to the list of endemic regions by the National Programme for Prevention and Control of Fluorosis in 2011-’12. But, according to Khan, the government is yet to supply alternative sources of drinking water or reverse osmosis facilitators to most villages. As a result, villages like Khedli Khurd continue to depend on groundwater sucked out through borewells.

Faizan.

“Should we die thirsty instead?” asked 53-year-old Faizan, a resident of Khedli Khurd. Her son Jafruddin, 35, was diagnosed earlier this year with avascular necrosis, a condition in which the blood supply to the bones is obstructed. “I was in Gujarat for about 10 days after my doctor asked me to move out of Mewat for a while,” said Jafruddin. “I felt considerably better there, even without taking medicines. Now that I have come back, I will have to depend on the medicines again to move around.” When Jafruddin tried to squat on the floor, his teeth clenched in pain. Sohrab Khan, who has been teaching at the government school for the past six years, feels he is losing his agility, even though he does not stay in the village. “I can sense stiffness in my joints,” he said. “Since I am here for most part of the day, I end up drinking the water at the school.” Sohrab Khan is among those who took a moringa plant from Alfaz-E-Mewat, hoping it would stave off the symptoms of ageing he is facing in his 30s.

Jafruddin.

Hussain is unsure what direction the fluorosis-awareness programme will take once the radio series ends. But the change in the villagers’ approach towards the condition has been heartening. “When they had come for the session in early August, many of them thought their problems were just a part of ageing,” he said. “Now many are careful. At least, that’s what their eagerness to grow moringa in their houses shows.” All photos by Soumya Mathew https://ift.tt/2NCzEWu

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