Three feeds per day

'War doesn’t determine who is right, it decides who is left', said Bertrand Russell. It is a nice quote no doubt but the problem is that it has nothing to do with the rest of this post. It seemed a shame to ignore the quote so I decided to put it here. Adds a bit of class to an otherwise ordinary post, don't you think? (I wonder what the half-life of 'think' is.)

Once while examining me, an Ayurvedic doctor asked about my feeding. He was informed that the hospital had provided a chart specifying the contents and quantity of liquid feeds to be given to me approximately every two hours beginning at about 6:30 a.m. The Ayurvedic doctor said that this procedure was wrong and that I should have just 3 meals a day like other people - breakfast, lunch and dinner. Accordingly my feeding timings were fixed at approximately 8 a.m., 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. and the quantity of each feed was increased (I don't remember by how much).

Since I don't feel hungry, I did not feel any discomfort due to the long gap between feeds. I seemed as energetic as before so everyone thought that the new diet was fine. But after a couple of weeks visitors started saying that I was looking thinner than usual and that my bones seemed to be sticking out. The general consensus seemed to be that I was, like, disappearing. Bit by bit like the Cheshire Cat of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Soon people may have started saying that they have seen a person without a smile but never a smile without a person.

Folks at home did not wait that long. They decided to revert to the hospital mandated feed timings and quantity. In a few weeks, I seemed to be looking normal. I was of course unaware of all these changes, knowing about them only from the conversations of people around me.