Sabina calls at 8 and I leave my apartment to go to hers. While I am in the lift, I have mixed feelings. I am glad to be talking to her about our mutual issues. But I am also afraid that I might start speaking what the voices were telling me if my defense mechanisms relax in front of her. What would happen if I speak what the abusive or the sexual voice tells me! I would not only lose a friend I had made, it would also be an assault on her, an abuse on her. I should not let my defense mechanism break down and be careful as I always had to be when I was with someone. Engrossed in these thoughts I ring the bell. An unfamiliar face opens the door. I have gone into the wrong building, I am said. ‘You were always doomed right from the start. You cannot even find the right building. Nothing can come good of you.’

I come out of the building and take a deep breath. I turn towards Sabina’s building, go close, and confirm with the security guard. I ring the bell afraid that I have yet again got it wrong. But the door opens and the smiling face of Sabina gives me relief.

‘Come, come.’ She is on phone with someone and motions with her hands for me to sit down. I sit down looking at the table which has all the materials to roll a joint on it. A smell wafts from the kitchen, smell of popcorns. She brings a bowl full of it and keeps it on the table looking at me and telling me with her eyes to have them. I hear her speaking in Bengali. I pick up a piece of popcorn and look at it closely. It resembles a flower. My thoughts go to the garden at the University and the beautiful flowers that grow in it. I smile and eat the popcorn with a relish. She enters the room again, this time with the phone in her hand.

‘It was my mother. There is a party at our house. My parents were missing me.’

When people talk about their parents having a party, I feel jealous. My parents never enjoyed a party together or were even invited to parties. Even though Sabina and me work at the same University, her statement brings out to me the fact that we are separated by oceans. I consider people like her lucky to have their parents missing them in a party. A sense of disappointment pervades me. Do we belong to the same place, the same planet? But I gather myself.

 ‘This party?’

‘It’s my father’s friends. They get together once every month at somebody’s house.’

‘Your father’s occupation?’

‘He is a psychoanalyst and a psychocounsellor, two in one, the best in Kolkata. My father’s teacher was a student of Sigmund Freud.’ She is burning a small piece of the hashish on the spoon. Once it has semi melted, she mixes it with tobacco.

‘The Austrian right?’

‘Yes.’

  She puts a part of the mixture in a rolling paper and starts rolling it.

‘Explains your interest.’

‘My interest, in a way. My name, for sure. My father never asked me to choose this field. But yes, deep down, I could have got it from him.’

She wets the margins of the rolling paper with saliva, rolls it smoothly and then she sticks it to the rest of the rolling paper to make a crisp joint.

‘Psychoanalysts, how their life?’

‘They have a boring life. They talk to sick people.’

‘Like you are, to me?’ I smile inquisitively.

‘No. Not at all.’ She rises up with a force and goes into the kitchen. She brings out a plate of momos.

‘I feel hungry after smoking up.’

‘From the shop outside?’

‘Yes. And you must taste the sauce. It’s spicy like hell.’

I pass my fingers on the sauce kept in the small bowl and lick it.

‘Chillies. Red chillies.’

‘I love this sauce.’

‘Was thinking about your work at home today. Business revolves around the decision-making process of the normal people. Economic models are built around rational humans. What do we change, the mentally ill, or the fundamentals on which businesses are built?’

She inhales smoke and smiles which to me means that she appreciates what I have said, that she has judged it to be an intelligent point.

‘As of now the idea is to change the mentally ill. That is what the expectation is. To give them medicines and therapy so that they can work the way other people do. But I don’t exactly get the point about the economic models.’

‘The simple concepts you studied in your microeconomics course. Profit maximization. Preference ordering. Budget allocation. Consumer choice. The models have rationality as their assumption.’

‘Yes.’

‘Think of a mentally ill person. Why is his or her decision making not the same as a normal person? When a mentally ill person goes to buy products in the market, will he or she choose the same bunch of products given an income?’

‘This sounds all fatta. How is it related to the mentally ill in the job market?’

‘Part of the problem, the way economics looks at decision making. Decision making process of the mentally ill is different from the normal person and when he or she goes to work, they have to adapt to newer processes or work with concepts he or she does not associate with internally. If this problem could be tackled maybe the person will feel more at home working in a company.’

‘Let me get it straight. You are saying that businesses work on the fundamentals of economic decision making. And mentally ill people find it difficult to adapt to them because their internal process of decision making is different. This may make them uncomfortable at the work places.’

‘Make them uncomfortable and make others uncomfortable with them.’

She inhales again and looks up on the wall making a slow ummm sound.

‘You know this reminds me of something. Once my father, who used to discuss his work with us at the dinner table, told us about a person called Thomas Szasz, a psychiatrist who thought mental illness was a myth. It could not be thought of as an illness like the other ailments of the body. He postulated that mentally ill people are thought to be ill because of the society around them. The society expects them to behave in a particular way and when they do not do it, they are termed as ill.’

‘Sounds interesting. His name again?’

‘Thomas Szasz.’

‘Will read his work.’

‘Read his article on “The Myth of mental illness”. There is a book by that name as well.’

‘Sure.’

‘We should definitely brain storm this idea, man. The hypothesis is interesting. I am sure if we do some good research and get positive results, we can bring out a good paper.’

‘Which challenges some of the fundamentals on which economic thought is based.’

‘How do you propose we start?’

‘Let me go through the literature. We will build up a theory and a model after that.’

‘Wonderful. Thanks buddy, I am feeling good with this. Aren’t you?’

I am not feeling too ecstatic. The only thing I am feeling good about is that I got a research partner. Research happens faster when you do it in teams.

‘Yes, I am.’

‘#$% #$ #$%^& #$%. #$% #$%^ #$%^& #$%. $%^ #$% #$ #$% #$% #$%^ $%^ $%^ $%^ $%^. #$%^ #$% #$% #$%^&*, #$% #$% #$%^ #$% #$%^&*.’

 ‘Ahha..Ab dekhti hoon wo bacchhu Anirban kaise neecha dikhata hai mujhe (Now I am going to show Anirban he can’t put me down). This paper will take me up, up and up. Waise mein abhi up hi hoon, what do you think?’

‘Yes,’ I smile.

‘This hashish is good man. I feel so light. It’s a shame you cannot smoke it.’

‘I am fine.’

‘How can you be fine with this schizophrenia? Do not lie to me Kabir.’

‘Not easy.’

‘It definitely isn’t. Why don’t you take help? Go to therapy or better go to a psychoanalyst?’

‘Not sure about it.’

‘My father really helped people who were sick. I have seen it happen.’

‘Will fight it out.’ I say it with some determination.  She looks at me with a glint of sympathy. Then she jumps on her sofa and squats. I can feel a sudden burst of energy coming into her and I instinctively know she would smile.

‘I will help you out. You know what, you make me feel good today and I am sure our work will take me places. I get this feeling. This feeling, when I am with hash, will not be fake. I say it from experience. So, Mr. Kabir, it is done. You help me out with my research. I will help you out with your mental problem. Whatsay?’

I am not comfortable with this arrangement at all. I do what is generally done in these situations.

‘Will think about it.’

‘No thinking about it. You have to give your answer now dude. I know this is the moment, I know for sure.’

I sit there like a lame duck. Most of me is sure it is not a right idea. She helping me out with my problem would mean her knowing the true me. That is not possible or else I would even lose what I have. I would lose her friendship and the risk of the word of my illness being spread around the campus if she gets pissed off with me, which is sure to happen. Most of me is so afraid. There is only a small part of me which says yes. It wants someone. It wishes someone could understand and listen to me. It wishes the fear of being judged to vanish.

‘Sounds good.’ I say. A pain erupts in my body. ‘Now you are doomed for sure.’

‘First, let us see what steps you have taken to improve your mental life? I am sure you are on medication, aren’t you?’

‘Yes.’

‘What medicine are you taking and in what dosage?’

I tell her about my medicine and the dosage.

‘I assume this will be an antipsychotic medicine?’

‘Yes.’

‘Who is your psychiatrist?’

‘Sits in Max Hospital in Delhi.’

‘How often do you meet him?’

‘Every three months.’

‘That is good. You should meet your psychiatrist regularly. At least if you have to change your medication. Like you said you are feeling better now with the medicines?’

‘Yes, I am.’

‘Then ask him to reduce your medication.’

‘Why?’

‘He has to. The idea behind a schizophrenic patient is not to keep him on high dosage all his life. At least the attempt should be to reduce the dosage when the patient starts feeling better. My father used to say this to his patients.’

‘At your dinner table?’

‘Yes, he used to discuss his day’s work with us at the dinner table.’

‘Will talk to the psychiatrist.’

‘Good.’ She takes a drag.

We talk about my issues for a while. I have dinner with her and then I leave.