Pomegranates

I was at the fruit shop yesterday evening. I picked up Apples, Black grapes, Keenus; all a kilo and the wild ‘Ber’ just a quarter. Wild Bers are only for me; me being the only ‘wild’ one in the family. Then I saw them kept in a corner, the caskets of red pearls: pomegranates! My eyes went straight from pomegranates to my husband, who was standing like a dutiful soldier with his wallet drawn. He saw my glance and then he said, ‘Your hands...’

Two years back pomegranates used to be his daily diet. His HB had plummeted to 10 during his annual medicals. His colleagues and friends looked at me accusingly.

‘Are you not giving him a proper diet?’

A very distressed I started googling day and night finding remedies for anaemia. It was then someone told me about pomegranates. I decided to try them. Every morning I would open two pomegranates and patiently take the shiny red pearls out. I would then put them in a bowl and offer them to my husband like a devoted wife when he came back from his morning run. I bought Tupperware containers (colourful ones to catch the eye of his colleaguesJ), filled them with all kinds of dry fruits and sent along with his lunch box. My husband’s face beamed with happiness from all my affection and care but his HB never rose beyond the 11.2 mark.

I doubted the lab technicians were pulling out too much blood from him for all the investigations they were doing. Or were they in league with him to make me do that extra work? He had no fatigue, continued to run 7km and work for 8hrs a day. I started worrying all the more when they could find no reason for his anaemia. Vampire??? I checked my teeth....just in case...

In the end, the haematologist found the answer. Thalassemia minor; a trait he was born with that accounted for his low haemoglobin levels. His body had now got used to low HB levels from birth. A blood donation done just before the medicals would account for the remarkably low level then. That explained why my pomegranates would not pull up his HB.  I looked at my hands, all chipped and with brown marks from opening pomegranates.

I stopped opening pomegranates from the next day. My husband was surprised not to see me welcoming him back from his run with the ‘thalapoli’ of pomegranates. When he asked I showed him my hands. He never asked for pomegranates again.

So every time when we are together at a fruit shop, I would look at the pomegranates and then look at him.

With a concerned look he would say, ‘Your hands...’

It would neither be a ‘buy’ nor a ‘don't buy’ from him. Choice is mine. How clever!