Kishore Singh: Chew on this

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Usually, my niece who is prone to fits of giggling, has been very little cause for concern but for an affectation we had presumed was for our benefit. "I like to eat buildings," she had declared when she was little.

She's not all that big even now, but in the few years since, she's managed to eat her way through a substantial bit of Bikaner before she began chomping her way through Jaipur where she now lives with her parents.

At first my mother worried about her peculiar habit for she would eat anything that resembled either brick or stone. She loved pebbles, would devour fistfuls of sand, and cement in any form was welcome. "It must be calcium deficiency," grandma said.

"Or her body needs minerals," my sister-in-law added. And so she was packed off to hospital to receive calcium and mineral supplements, but they only acted as appetisers while she gnawed at gate-posts and pillars.

She'd chew a bit off a corner of a wall, and a few days later there'd be no corner left. "I love red walls," she said, "and white walls and green walls," and ate them up indiscriminately.

After a while we decided it was best to ignore her so she wasn't compelled to test her teeth on bathroom shelves and kitchen counters, but even disregarded by us her prodigious appetite managed to appropriate concrete at a rate that was astonishing.

Neither allopathy nor homeopathy nor even ayurveda was a cure for her dining habits, so in time we learned to take it in our stride and asked the mason to stop by every time she visited. We couldn't stop her from eating us out of our homes, but we could at least try and re-plaster.

The beds lining the flower beds would disapper, and we knew my niece must have happened by. If chunks were scooped out of the driveway, we knew she must have returned hungry from school.

She particularly liked the stones being broken up to lay roads, but was otherwise impartial, all built structures grist to her hunger.

Through it all, she never even had a stomach ache. Therefore, it was with some concern we noted that doctors had diagnosed her with a serious blood disorder.

Life turned topsy-turvy as preparations for a cure that some said would be required for a lifetime, got underway. We worried for her health, and despite some reservations about shopping around for doctors, called in second, third, even fourth opinions.

Thankfully, there was nothing wrong with her, the doctors said, only with her dining habits. Henceforth, she could have spinach like the rest of humanity, but neither stone nor brick walls were allowed for, unfortunately, having caused not a little damage to her stomach lining, she was unable to absorb iron any more, which is what was playing havoc with her haemoglobin count.

But before she went on her new diet, she would need iron shots. "Intra-muscular," argued one doctor. "Intravenous," countered another. "Call me when you've decided," said my sister-in-law, relieved she wouldn't have to count the missing bricks from her living room wall every time she returned from work.

"I have a better idea," said my young niece, clearly looking forward to strengthening her foundations now that everyone had concrete evidence about her culinary preferences, "why don't I just get my iron from around me?" "Apples," suggested my mother.

"Tomatoes," suggested hers. "Pshaw," said my niece, pooh-poohing such sissy stuff, "I'm feeling like a nibble at the gate." So, if you happen by in Jaipur and see lamposts missing on its streets, or girders bitten off from bridges and gates, you'll know a little girl has just been following the doctor's orders.