Psychosis Unspecified Part II - The 'Wow'

Wow : A term used to express wonder, amazement, or great pleasure.

It was a normal, dull day at work...almost past noon, but I was still suffering from the Monday morning blues....somehow I can never get over my antipathy towards Mondays from my school days and the saga continues...Suddenly I got a text on my phone.." Hey lets have some coffee at Manokamna ". Those who know me pretty well, they know that when it comes to coffee, I swear by 'Devil's Own' from CCD or when in my 'intellectual' persona would only prefer black coffee from the Indian Coffee House. But at that particular moment, what I really yearned for more than anything else,  just to have a sip of that coffee from Manokamna with my Saat Janam, Saat Saal, Saat Din and of course 15 ka Rishta. Ok the names do sound very filmy, as if straight out of some B grade Bollywood movies...but aye, as the bard has said "what's in a name..." so totally agreeing with Mr. Shakespeare, I would like to state in my defense that these are the names that have been very lovingly given by me to my friends and so don't you dare and make fun of them!!!! Well, why I have given such filmy name...thats a different story...but the real story is how we became the 'Wow'!!!!! (See, I even rhymed it! )

The story begins on the day of my CIP entrance exam...as I had mentioned in the part I, mat puch mujhse aye kabir ke maine kaise yeh exam diya tha...so lets straight come to the end of the examination. The exam was of 1 hour and I finished the exam super fast, as if I was trying to do an advertisement for the Duranto express (btw, it had not started as yet)...or so I had thought...I finished the exam 5-10 minutes before the final bell, submitted it and made a dash for the exit, as if I had to go and save the world from some crisis (actually I was horribly hungry and would have started chewing the exam papers if I couldn't get any food at that time). And so while making my mad dash out of the main gate, I saw this girl walking just ahead of me. I was taken aback to be honest!!! I thought I’m super-fast express...but this girl was faster than me!!! Aye!! I was intrigued....Who’s this girl??? But my narcissistic self got the better of me and so I became busy fantasizing what kinds of food I will be having after getting out...ok the nagging doubt was there too, whether I will pass or not, but the over optimistic self just shrugged this doubt off my mind. And so I came out of the main gate, looking for my father who was waiting outside for me. I saw him chatting with another man...i.e., another parent of one of the countless examinees. I just rushed towards him and he asked, “How was your exam?”.... I just blurted it out “It was good..it was very good!!” Honestly at that time, I wanted him to stop asking me questions and just show me the sight of food....so saying “good” seemed to be the best option at that time, to stop any further questioning. I don’t know how I had answered and whether I looked totally confident while making this 'declaration'...but the other parent seemed to be pretty impressed with my answer and told me “Very good beta...you should always remain optimistic like that” ...or something like that...I don’t recall the exact words (culprit my poor episodic memory)...but I felt so proud of myself listening to these words of praise...became pretty impressed with myself  and even for a while deluded myself that my answer was a result of my optimism, not otherwise. And then I noticed that the intriguing girl, don’t know when and how, had quietly slipped beside my Appraiser and was looking at me with such a bewildered look as if she’s looking at something out of the world..Alien type thingy...but of course I never gave it too much importance as I was already engulfed in my new found glory....but don’t know why remembered that girl’s face, more so because of her father.

Scene two: A month later again in CIP, this time sitting inside the office, busy filling up the admission form. I am very bad at filling up forms..they make me very confused between different options and me being the quintessential indecisive  cannot decide what to write and what not to....so as I was busy scratching my head sitting on this sofa (my Dad had refused to help me out this time) I again saw that intriguing girl. My Dad was already busy chatting with her father, as if they are long lost friends...Ram aur Shyam...and I was very disappointed why my Dad has captured my Appraiser..I would have loved to hear some more words of praise from him...and so I kept on thinking about all these things without concentrating on the task in hand, and when I woke up from my reverie, I saw that girl filling up the form with such focused approach as if she’s busy solving ‘How to get rid of Cancer’ type problems!!! Suddenly my Dad came up to me and started cajoling me to go and talk with that girl, as if he wanted to extend that Ram aur Shyam saga into Sita aur Geeta between us. I vehemently disagreed....I could not imagine her in the role of Sita opposite to my Geeta character. With a director’s eye I could not envision her as so..although I could have managed that if I had trained her properly..or so I thought..But Naye! Compromise with my vision! Never!!! So I did not budge in. But my father changed his tactics and came down to commanding in that very tone, which I’m still very afraid of..so I thought “Fine! Whatever!”...they say you should always obey your parents...so as a mark of reverence towards my father I went up to her and asked her some silly questions regarding the admission form. What I had not noticed that in the mean while her father was also trying out the same tactics with her, and so unwillingly we both started gingerly conversing each other in such a way as if somebody has forced us to gulp hemlock!!! Never mind...both the fathers seemed quite satisfied at this half-hearted attempt and we bade each other farewell formally, before leaving for each other’s destinations. Who would have imagined that this same intriguing girl would one day become my ‘Saat din’ and would acknowledge that I’m the biggest influence in her life and how she’s indebted to me....blah...blah...blah....Okay the latter she hasn’t officially done yet...but one day she’d,  I’m quite sure. Truth is, without her ‘Kissa Saat Rishton ka’ won’t have been possible and the ‘Wow’ would have never happened.

But what is this ‘Wow’ and ‘Kissa Saat Rishton ka’????? Hmmmm....now that is an interesting question...well I will ensure the answer in my own so-called circumstantial style (actually mine isn't circumstantiality, it’s prolixity...my critics term it as this...but as I already said “What’s in a name..”, so I don't really mind being called so).

So picture abhi baki hai mere dost....Wait for the next part (I’m behaving as if everybody is eagerly waiting for the next part..as if I write ‘literary master pieces’!!!)...till then Adios Amigos!!!

P.S. This part is dedicated to my amigo 'Saat Din' who loves reading and listening to my stories :)

Humiliated and Insulted

Naye, this post is not any critical appreciation of Dostoevsky's famous novel....to be precise nowhere near the context of the novel. Then what is it?......Well it's just an expression of a personal feeling. Being a moody person, I do experience different shades of emotions, but right now what I feel is truly 'Humiliated and Insulted'. 

Don't get me wrong. Nobody has insulted or humiliated me today. I had a good night's sleep, woke up late, had my breakfast, read the newspapers for an hour, roamed around the house lazily. So a perfect start for the day, according to me. It's just when I switched on the T.V and started seeing the national news, in a few seconds, my perfect morning became a distant dream and I started feeling what is the subject of this post. 

So what was there in the news channel? Well I'm not a celebrity that any news channel would cover any silly stories about me. Honestly I'm only known to my kins, friends and perhaps my teachers. So it was no news featuring me, then why did I started feeling like this? Is my mood swings becoming vulnerable to sudden bursts of emotions and I should be on some mood stabilizers to control it? Naye. Then what???

Well the first thing I saw on the news channel was the gruesome, horrendous and disgusting to the ultimate core video of a teen age girl being molested in full public view, in front of the camera, by some 20 odd people in Guwahati. To say I was shocked would be an understatement. If the television had been on mute, I would have even dared to think it's some stupid scene from a 90's Bollywood movie, where these scenes were pretty prevalent. But no, not at all. It was happening in reality!! I don't want to explain in details what happened, but all I can say that these men (or shall I call them animals) were of different ages 20s - late 30s. They were literally smiling, laughing, making fun of the whole situation, showing their faces brazenly in front of the camera, even forcing the poor girl to show her face as they were 'enjoying' the act of robbing the girl of her modesty. It seemed as if they were pretty proud of what they were doing, such 'brave hearts' that the presence of media even did not detour them from their goal!! Forget about why the by-standers did not do anything, or the role of the police.....we are having debates on these issues for such a long time, no change so far. But to see these men doing this shameless, inhuman act on camera was enough to make my blood get cold in fear. 

The first thought that came to my mind was "What if I was the girl?", and then I thought "Thank God, I am not." Instead of feeling relieved that this has not happened with me, I was soon overcome with a sense of fear....fear of going outside my home alone at night or returning alone from work at night. And suddenly another strong emotion grabbed me....Anger, murderous rage!!! I wanted to kill these men or at least see men like them hanged!!! Forget about saying "Inke ghar pe Ma, Bahen nahi hai kya?".....I understood these people don't deserve a maternal care, a sister's warmth, a wife's love even. 

Leave these men from Guwahati. A khap panchayat from UP recently had the audacity of declaring medieval rules and regulations on their women in front of the camera. A so-called rehabilitation centre in West Bengal for the Female Handicaps, instead of providing rehabilitation, provided free pass to any man to 'use' the women inmates for their own 'lustful needs' after sunset. So is this where we have come up to? Is this the condition of the society in the 21st century? Is this how certain groups of 'men' like to treat their women - mere objects, with no rights, no feelings,and no needs??

Sometimes I wonder what happened to people like Raja Rammohan or Ishwarchandra Vidyasagar, the great champions of female rights? If you cannot fight for our rights, atleast don't play with them as if they are playthings! It's not that I have not personally met men who have always treated women respectfully, if not equally. I have and still proudly remember my school days, when if any girl in our group would be teased in the streets, all the boys in the group would literally hurl themselves on that teaser. So 'Ram' and 'Ravana' both coexist in this society. Unfortunately it seems as if that the number of 'Ravana's are more these days.

So what can we do? Should we arm ourselves with pepper spray, take self defense classes or roam around with a 'Bodyguard'? Or should we try and change our attitude? I don't want to convey my judgement here, because there are many intellectuals in the society who supposedly uphold the rules of the society...maybe they should make a call. All I can say that these questions will remain and might even keep on increasing with days, if nothing fruitful is done about it and we women will  keep on feeling in each such instances 'Humiliated and Insulted'.

"...Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my Country awake."

Psychosis unspecified Part I

It's a very hot Sunday afternoon, with nothing to do. The room feels like a furnace and I'm sweating profusely.  I can hear the buzzing sound of the generator from a distance, constantly reminding me that there is no electricity for the last 3 ½  hours and is not showing any sign of coming back any soon. I try to divert my frustrated mind towards the still fan blades, with a magical thinking that if I stare at the fan blades long and hard enough, it might just start moving. And so I keep on looking intensely like a pseudo Neo or Zedi knight, hoping to make them move. Just as I give up and curse loudly, announcing my sense of disbelief, the fan blades start moving gradually with a screeching noise, indicating the 'Magic' (!) has indeed worked and the electricity has finally come back. As I silently thank the 'Force' for this magic, I cannot but help myself predict that the electricity will eventually go away again in sometime during the day. This coming and going of electricity has now become a regular affair in our lives for the past 2 years. Yet whenever it occurs, I react in the same way, with the same intensity as I had done the first time, 2 years back. And this thought suddenly takes me on a ride back to the past and a recap of all the happenings in past 2 years starts projecting inside my brain, revoking some strong and some not so strong memories. But if I have to put down in words, then the real story began much earlier,  about 3 years during my Masters final year. Surprisingly till Masters, I had almost chalked out my future plans - of what I am going to do next, where I am going to be. And maintaining the same, I had already planned by the final days of my PG days that I'm going to do M. Phil from Central Institute of Psychiatry, Kanke, Ranchi. Ok so why CIP, as this place is popularly known, why not from C.U. itself?? Aye, if I need to explain the 'why', then I will have to be little circumstantial,  but I promise sincerely that I'd come back to the main point.

It all started with my first visit to Ranchi in February, 2009. It was an academic trip organized by our Applied Psychology department for training in clinical related issues. At first, we were supposed to go to CIP for a week training, but as they were having some exams, or that's what we were told, they could not arrange for all of our accommodation, so we ended up in having our training from RINPAS - the state run psychiatric institute. Finally when the week was almost over, our teachers finally managed to get permission for visiting CIP for an hour or so. I don't really remember much about it (I've real memory problems - should apply some memory test on self once), but what I do remember is that during the two minutes auto ride from RINPAS to CIP, I could not help but appreciate the beauty of the road - the multitude of tree branches bending together as if to make an archway, the vivid greenery on both sides, the gentle Autumn breeze caressing us,......truly speaking I felt like I'm going to some kinda heaven. And as soon as our eyes fell on the green board on which in bold letters the name 'Central Institute of Psychiatry' was written, our hearts were filled with a sense of reverence, because somewhere down the line, we knew that we were standing in front of a remarkable landmark in the history of Psychiatry in our nation. And once inside, as I was walking past the wards towards the Satyanand teaching block, I knew it that yes, this is it. This is the place of dreams...my land of Utopia...this is where I wanted to be. And I had very quietly visualized myself walking down this same road, seeing patients after a year. And Aye!!! I had decided right at that moment that I'm coming for my M.Phil here!!!!

Thus started my preparation for clearing the M.Phil entrance exam here. I was so engrossed into getting here, that I did not study seriously for the C.U M.Phil entrance exam and as a result I did not qualify and hell yeah that got me into lots of shit!!! First got a huge scolding from parents, got a kick in my butt that it's not so easy and that I might be missing on other opportunities if I continue being only serious for CIP. So started an ordeal which was quite painful for me, given the kind of lazy person I am and gingerly I started weighing out the other options too, but deep down I'd pray to get in CIP. Anyways forget about how I prepared or how I gave my CIP exam coz that would be another story, but my 'salvation' came when I saw my name in the list of qualified candidates. I was ecstatic, I felt all my prayers have been answered and immediately I asked my father to cancel the tickets to Bangalore, where I had another entrance exam for NIMHANS. I was in this ecstatic mood even when I went for the interview at CIP. I explained the panel how badly I wanted to be in CIP, did not really care who were sitting, how they were reacting to my Affective psychosis or even when they were laughing. Actually where they found my answers funny or were laughing at me, I am still doubtful, but the Director was so impressed with me, or so I thought, he immediately told me after I finished my monologue, 'Welcome to CIP'. And hence began my journey, but I'd divulge in the details some other day. Till then 'Picture abhi baki hai mere dost!'.................