How I almost, mistakenly went half a day without talking.

I know. The heading itself makes you get a heart attack. I mean I WENT HALF A DAY WITHOUT TALKING!!! I still haven't gotten over the shock myself. Of course, there is a perfectly reasonable story behind the whole thing, but the occurrence of such a story itself is astonishing. Well, I guess I should stop the bakbak now, and explain the whole thing.
May I take the liberty of saying that a few parts of this narrative are shamelessly exaggerated, and I do not mean any offence to anyone through these harmless embellishments.

I have this awful cough for the past three weeks, and I've been coughing my head off. I threw up on Thursday night too, the result of which nobody got any sleep, and my mom was super-cranky all day long. I was on homeopathic medicine for a week or two, but it wasn't working as well as it used to do before. I mean, when I had a pollen allergy. So, after the whole me-throwing-up-and-nobody-sleeping-and-mom-being-cranky incident, my dad decided to take me to an allopathic doctor. I don't think that it was my constant cough as much as my mom's mood that did it, but I finally got some attention. The doctor did the whole stethoscope and flash a torch in your mouth routine, and then she told me that I have asthma. She prescribed an inhaler and some pills, and then I left. All of this happened on my birthday, in the evening, on Friday.

We ate out that night, and we came back home. And that night I threw up again. And again the night after. And again on the next. If you've been keeping track, that means that I threw up on all nights from Thursday till Sunday. All of Sunday, I had a super-squeaky, Minnie Mouse voice. And then today (Monday) morning, I woke up. My voice was alright in the morning. As in, it was intact, if a bit squeaky. But when I reached school, I found that my voice had disappeared. I could manage no more than a bare whisper.

That was when I freaked out. I was scared. Really scared. I couldn't talk! That was the worst affliction that ever happened to me. And the saddest part was, everyone was happy about it! I got a lot of compliments on my ability to conveniently lose my voice. Like I did it on purpose. Anyways, there was nothing to do, so I promptly appointed Prach to the prestigious position of 'The Mouth'. In short, I would whisper in her ear, and she would convey the talk to the person I wished to contact. It was tedious, but way better than not talking at all. I went all day like that. Talking in whispers. Which soon made me think that it would be better not to talk. So I stopped talking, except for when anyone asked me anything. Like, you know, no unnecessary nonsense. It was really sad. I mean, 'Nonsense and Irritation' is like, my motto.

And so it went, until Science practicals. I was getting fed up of having to whisper all the time. Actually, who wouldn't? And let me tell you that that complete OAF Amogh had been teasing me all day about my wimpy, whispery voice. I must admit, I was getting a bit embarrassed too. No wonder that when he started teasing me again I ended up bellowing back. I think I kind of lost control. Losing control comes in handy sometimes, doesn't it? And it's fun going off the hook.

The rest of the time, which was admittedly not much, was spent in telling everyone I met how I got my voice back. Some sympathetic, kind creatures like Namrata were good enough to congratulate me, but some of those total WORMS didn't do anything but groan and wish each other good luck.

I think the only lesson I learnt from this episode was that we shouldn't overdo it when it comes to any illness. I am firmly convinced that my losing my voice was due to my mentality that I was going to lose my voice. And it wasn't a very pleasant experience!