Serendipity and After/60

a novel about publishing of a novel

Aneek-da takes me around the psychiatry outdoor. It is spread over a much wider space than I ever knew. Apart from the big room where Dr Bal sits, attends on new patients, and teaches students, there are rooms for patient interviews and psychotherapy. There is one room for ECT (electroconvulsive therapy). There is another room for a lady social welfare officer. There are two counters, for male and female patients each, where the old chronic patients are attended by house staffs. In the open space two staffs register the names of patients and provide them tickets.

I like the arrangement and take delight in the concept covering the whole of mental illness. But the huge throng of patients surprise and unsettle me. So many mental patients, I think to myself. And they seem like a ragtag group: some are muttering to themselves, some with fatuous smile, some look grubby and distraught, some lost in their thoughts and there are some who are wandering restlessly with menacing look.

“It’s not a comfortable zone,” I comment.

“Say it’s a danger zone,” Aneek-da says to me. “They can create problem anytime for you. They can abuse you. They can beat you. They can pinch you. They can bite you.”

I get a creepy, visceral feeling.

He shows me a nasty scar on the back of his right hand. “A young girl bit me in the second week of my joining here.”

“How?”

“I was on my evening round — my first round actually — when she called me out from her bed. I was then talking to another patient, so I was a bit late to attend on her. The moment I stopped by her, she took my right hand straight away and gave it a fierce bite. I shrieked so much that the nurse on duty and others came rushing to me. There was bleeding even. When I recounted this experience next day to Dr Bal, he laughed and said, “It’s the first lesson you learnt here!”

“Why is it a lesson?”

“Let me tell you by way of advice that these patients are not like those you’ve seen in other branches of medicine or surgery. Here you can’t communicate with them. They are often hostile. So you must be alert when you talk to them. You must be on your guard specially in case of female patients. Females are more dangerous than males.”

I sit with Aneek-da at the female counter. The first patient stands before us. Young, good-looking, but she is smirking. Aneek-da does not look at her and simply writes, “Repeat all”.

Second patient. Third. Aneek-da disposes them real quick.

He attends some fifty patients in two hours. “Let’s go and take tea,” he stands up from his seat. We get straight to Coomer’s canteen.

“It’s absolutely boring, you know. but you’ll come across some stunning beauty among these patients. Did you notice that lady with the bag across her shoulder?”

“Yes. What’s she suffering from?”

“Schizophrenia. You wouldn’t believe she complained against me that I look at her lustfully. Sir was so angry with me. Never look at them, specially if it’s any beautiful woman.”

“Aneek-da, is there any relation between insanity and physical beauty?”

“According to our sir, there is. He advises us to suspect insanity in each and every beautiful woman.”

“Really? Did you get it mentioned in any standard text book?”

“Not really. But he has worked as a psychiatrist in many reputed hospitals in England. He has terrific practical knowledge in psychiatry and doesn’t much care about text-books. He believes in his own findings.”

“Did you hear what he told me about psychiatrists? That they are all crackpots?”

“Yes,” Aneek-da laughed, “I’ve heard him tell this before also.”

“Do you think it’s true?”

“I’m not sure. May be it’s true. May be not. But he never utters any nonsense.”

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