To children in rural Kerala, it’s ‘chickenguniya’ and is spread by diseased chickens sent across to Kerala from the ‘unfriendly’ Tamil Nadu to ‘destroy’ ‘Malayali Nadu’. To others it is spread by germs cleverly mixed in the manure for rubber trees. But the older, and presumably wiser, sections believe that the now-fashionable ailment is sent to God’s Own Country by God to punish sinners in the state.Chikunguniya has more to it than meets the eye. In the initial stages, it’s just a fever which appears quite harmless. One honestly thinks that you could blow it off with a few paracetamol tabs. But the Great Chikun Goddess does not leave it at that. She puts you in a spot as the disease spreads its wings and starts showing off at your joints in several funny shapes of small little swellings, which doctors term ‘chikun inflammations’. And it doesn’t stop there. Later it begins to beautify your face by adding a touch of rouge to it. At this stage, it is termed ‘tomato fever’ by the locals. Chikun also tends to make people humble. At a certain stage, it causes you to limp along as if in a trance.Incidentally, chikunguniya is the only topic of discussion. Municipalities and panchayats now vie with each one to rid their areas of mosquitoes. Environmentalists are up in arms against the poor insect. The high court decides to give the Kochi corporation a kick to get it to move mountains of waste from Ernakulam city. Holidays are declared for schools and government offices so that everybody can pay due obeisance to the Great Chikun Goddess. Suddenly, it’s festival time for the quacks, who run clinics everywhere.The chemists have a field day selling Crocin and Calpol by the kilo even as priests conduct special prayers in churches and temples.But chikengunia has done more than shore up people’s faith in the divine. It has brought about a rare unity among warring political groups. The Great Chikun Goddess is working wonders in the country’s most literate state.
