Speaking Stones
What we call 'normal' is simply a question of consent. When the majority agrees on a particular thing, it becomes normal and conventional. Creativity is not a thing of consent. In the world of creativity, deviance and transgressions rule. Madness, in this sense is a field of creativity. In Paulo Coelho's novel, Veronika Decides to Die, he observes that madness is another form of existence. In winter a madman decides to shed off all his clothes. Reason, he must be feeling summer in his world.
Deviancy of behavior, which is otherwise known as madness has intrigued the human beings from the very beginning. To keep the social structure intact, the authorities used to shunt out the madmen to far off places. Foucault in his Madness and Civilization talks about the ship of fools. There was a time when the mad men were put into a ship and sent off to lonely islands. There they were tortured or left to die at the hands of nature.
Sanatoriums for keeping mad people came much later. Humanistic approach towards mad people still remained a thing of illusion. Only in late twentieth century we see sanatoriums coming up with high levels of humanitarian approach. Sundar, basically a researcher in Indian cartoons, now settled in Australia has more than one reason to write about the mad people in Kerala. Primarily he is a humanist, he takes interest in sociology of human behavior, last but not the least, he carries a good journalist's conscience that looks out for redeeming those who are in pain and despair.
This book, written in Malayalam is a compilation of articles written during mid 1980s after visiting several mental health sanatoriums in Kerala, Madras and Bangalore. Goaded by the editor of a magazine to which Sundar used to contribute articles occasionally, Sundar visited the notorious Oolambara Mental Health Centre [it was asylum then] in Trivandrum. The scenes that he witnessed there were beyond a 'normal' human being's imagination. Both men and women patients were left to spend their days in filth and excreta. Naked and stripped off of all human dignity they were not even given the sympathy that otherwise one would give to stray animals.
Sundar observed that for a single beedi (a local cheap cigarette) patients were ready to do any menial job. The authorities treated them like slaves and punished them like as if they were criminals. Modern methods of treatment or counseling were not implemented. Or to be precise none cared even such things existed in the field of psychiatry. Neither the public nor the relatives were allowed to visit the patients. Most often the patients were dumped by their relatives thanks to several reasons.
The author contrasts the condition of the mental asylums in Kerala with those of NIMHANS, a mental health centre located in Bangalore where patients are treated with great care, sympathy and love. The patients are not chained up or lay in filth. The hygiene conditions are of international levels. Madras too he finds the same situations. He comes to a conclusion that only the man made situations make the Kerala mental health centers the living examples of hell.
The articles when appeared in the journal for the first time generated furor and moral cry amongst those people who had not lost their social conscience. One doctor, Dr.P.N.Gopalakrishnan who had the will to change was given the charge of the Trivandrum asylum and with the help of like minded people, he brought in several changes so that now this hospital can claim its right to be called a decent mental health centre.
Sundar, however, is not satisfied with this outcome. Living in Australia, he still feels that, there should be further efforts to rehabilitate cured patients and also the government should come forward to give pension to the 'mad' people. The social ostracism is the reason that he cites for this move. Once mad always mad, is the mentality of our society. He demands that the doors of the mental health centres should always be open to the public and relatives so that the patients do not feel that they are living in dungeons, deprived of all social contacts.
This small book, that runs sixty eight pages, however narrates a conscience shattering and evoking picture of the Kerala Mental asylums. Besides, it lists out methods and materials, with which one can bring in changes. One may wonder why I decided to review this book in an art magazine like www.artconcerns.com. There are two reasons; one Sundar is a friend of mine and I respect his socio-cultural engagements. Two, art is a field where mental transgressions are seen and addressed. Sumedh Rajendran's sculpture titled ' Ship of Fools' is one of the recent examples. Last but not the least, madness is a notion, once revered as divine, which is now pushed into the margins of mainstream art production. Now there is only method. No madness in this method.
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