Of Digene, indigestion and Bengalis'

an ode to all those meals when i have overeaten and have been suggested by aunties (who had cooked those lovely meals) that i should top it up with a dose of digene/gelusil/aquaptychotis/carmozyme/carboveg....or any of the list of digestives that bengalis surely stock at home...

This article appeared at Hindustan Times, New Delhi on October 25, 2005

It's no laughing matter. To learn that most of the pills we pop on a regular basis are "irrational, useless or needless" makes one feel rather foolish. The issue really is about how we use harmless pills to dull ourselves into believing that we just administered ourselves a dose of 'good health'. But, to be honest, all that worried me — after I stopped laughing, that is — was whatever are my Bengali friends to do now? Lest this unleashes a wave of indigestion, let me assure readers that there is no offence meant here. But, it must be acknowledged, even if research has yet to prove it, that Bengalis must be thanked for the fortunes raked in by Digene sales. And Gelusil sales for that matter. Agreed that there's nary an urban household in India oblivious to Digene or Liv-52, but the world will agree, honorary Bongs included, that there exists an uncanny link between digestive medicine and Bengalis.
The morning rush hour in most households is a matter of routine. For Bongs, it's almost a ritual; for mothers of little boys, a harassment. I know of quite a few kids hoisted upon the toilet seat and made to sit there until... Little wonder that Bengalis grow up reading so much.
Even as I write this, a non-Bengali colleague (for the world is divided into Bengali and non-Bengali people) chips in with his tale. Married to a Bengali, he was somewhat taken aback when he realised that a criterion to judge whether he, as a guest, was comfortable in a Bengali uncle's home, was to enquire about his visitations to the loo and judge the experience thereafter. For a non-Bong, this parameter can be a bit of a shocker. But as anyone visiting relatives in Calcutta (where meals have no names) will agree, the natural corollary to any post-meal protestation, is, 'There's Digene'. And imagine my amazement at a neighbour postponing his house being white-washed because, hand on stomach, 'it wasn't cleared today'.
Bengalis would, of course, much rather talk about their forefathers in light of their contribution to things like drafting the Constitution, and it is but natural that there is little engagement on their collective weak constitution. But fact of the matter is that a Bengali household, in some degree or the other, is conditioned into making peristalsis, what else, a mass movement.
Many a heart was broken when Helicobacter pylori took all the credit for causing ulcers. Stress, mutton cutlets and 'tele bhaja' could no longer be blamed. But there was succour in the bottles that formed the gastric line-up: Digene, Aqua ptychotis, Carmozyme. What are these men going to do now? It's not even a condition that you develop with age.
It may be interesting for geneticists trying to crack genome intricacies to conduct a survey of this Bengali condition. Does a protein sequence trigger it off? Or, Dr Watson, is it all very alimentary? Maybe they can call the study, 'The Great Bengali Bowel Movement'.