Next day, I put this question to the Boss. She is looking at some papers as the Traumafinder rises from the floor.

‘Nobody seems to understand how harmful these kinds of portrayals are for the lives of mentally ill. How much cinema propagates this misunderstanding? How much of self-doubt they can give to the person who is trying to recover? Self-belief and belief of the society make a person’s identity. If art demonizes them society will demonize them too.’

‘Are we like that?’

‘No way. Violence in mentally ill is a public perception. It is far away from reality. Most people with mental illness like yours are not violent. A subset of them are but in their case it is difficult to point out how much of their mental illness is responsible for their violent behavior. It could be other factors like childhood abuse or substance abuse and so on. In fact, chances are high that a mentally ill person will be the victim of violence and assault instead of perpetrating it. Portrayals like we see in films encourage this behavior in the common public. Our Bollywood films are the worst. We have had terrible portrayals of mentally ill feeding the negative public perception. There is only one film you can watch which has a realistic portrayal of schizophrenia. It’s called Devrai. The language is Marathi but it’s available with subtitles on Netflix.’

I am intrigued on hearing the word Netflix coming from the Boss. She never looked to me to be the kind aware of films and streaming platforms. Her answer and explanation soothe me.

‘Hope things change.’

‘It will take time. Let’s start for today. Traumafinder.’

The scenes start. After a while, I see myself standing at the kitchen door. I look like thirteen years of age. My father is cooking food on the heater and is crying. It came to me, this event from my past.

‘What was he speaking?’

‘Everything has been lost. We are doomed. No idea how will he take care of us. Our future is in a hole.’

‘What had happened?’

‘Lost all his money and gone into debt. Been defrauded in the share market. Worked as an agent and used to put the money of his clients in different shares. Man from Kolkata made him sign fraudulent papers and gave him fake shares and looted all the money. Now he was in debt. Broke all his savings to pay back his clients and was still left with a lot of debt. Sold all the land he had bought out of his savings. Filed a case in court and made my mother a witness. My mother, ill as she was, was unwilling to go to court. Fought regularly on it. She had stopped cooking food. Terrible time.’

‘Move slowly, Traumafinder.’

My father, as he switched off the gas, turns around and muttering something goes to the bedroom where my mother is sleeping. I knew what was going to come, had seen it happen before. He wakes my mother up and pleads with her to go to court with him. He says both of them should have love and care for each other. My mother does not agree with him. Then they start fighting. Abuses fly from both sides. They are shouting at each other. When my parents quarrel, after they are done with each other personally, they bring their families in and character assassinate each other’s family members. I am standing at the bedroom door listening. My father takes the medicines from the dressing table and asks my mother to take one pill. She has been refusing to take medications. My mother accuses my father of talking about her illness to everybody in town. She says he had a pact with the psychiatrist and was sleeping with his wife. Things are heating up to higher temperatures. My father threatens her that he would call every male from the colony and force the medicine into her mouth. She challenges him to try it. He slaps her hard. And tries to open her mouth with his right hand and put the medicine through the left. She cries out loud as the medicine goes inside the mouth. He tries to force it in with his fingers. As his grip loosens a little, she spits the medicine out again. He slaps her again as she starts hurtling abuses at him. He sits down on the floor cursing his stars.

‘This must have been a terrible experience?’

‘Yes, mother’s face etched in my mind like a painful painting.’

‘Does this explain you not believing in going to a psychiatrist when your episode first started at the Institute?’

‘Mother hated psychiatrists and medicines.’

‘Do you still believe in her beliefs?’

‘Sort of yes.’

‘It’s a debatable topic. When you are in an episode, like you were in, you should go to a professional psychiatrist. If you do not like the one you went to, choose another one. They are also available online. Medicines do provide patients with some relief. Even though they do not cure the illness for most people, they do make them less aggressive and numb the positive symptoms. In your mother’s case, there was only one psychiatrist in the town and she must not have been comfortable with him. A patient can never work with a psychiatrist if she is not comfortable. People around her have to understand it. Are you taking your medications?’

‘Yes’

‘Do you like your psychiatrist?’

‘Yes. Want to get rid of my medications.’

‘It could be possible. I think you are responding to this treatment. But it will not be easy. Weaning off medications takes time.’

‘Can this treatment take me off them?’

‘Yes, it’s possible. This kind of treatment does not believe that your hallucinations are a bad thing. The idea is to live with them peacefully. Accept them, understand their source, and not react or run away from them. The medical model on which the practice of psychiatry is based believes in getting rid of them. Sadly, they still do not have the reasons for schizophrenia and a cure for it. It is more of a hit and trial process to see if the patient responds to a medication.’

‘Took a vow never to tell anyone about my mother’s illness.’

‘This would have taken a toll on you. Keeping sad and traumatic memories inside is unhealthy. You must let go off this habit of yours and talk about it. It will help.’

‘I understand.’

‘Why didn’t you help your mother when she was being beaten?’

‘Didn’t have the strength.’

‘Or you were supporting your father in what he was doing. You wished him to do that.’

‘Maybe.’

I look at the face of the Boss. She has a frown and blood has run into her nose making it red. I understand the reasons she is angry about. I have never even given a thought that I could have moved forward and confronted my father. It is possible that I thought that he was right and my mother was wrong. When you are mentally ill and you make people suffer in some way, they hate you so much that they are not ready to listen to you even when you have a genuine reason or even when you are being wronged. It’s as if your mental illness takes away from you the license to enjoy all the rights and privileges given to normal people. The right to dignity in life. In a way I may have believed that my mother does not enjoy that right.

‘Your mother needed your help. She still needs it. She has gone through a lot.’

‘Yes, I understand that now.’

‘You were wrong. You have to fight against injustice. You should never allow your father to beat your mother. In fact, you should take him to the police if he does anything like that.’

‘I will.’

‘We will stop for today dear. I will see you tomorrow.’

At the hotel room, I lay the groundwork for my mother’s mental health recovery. I decide that I will call her to my place and take her to the same psychiatrist I am consulting. I write down few topics I will never discuss with her. Supporting her and taking away all the indifference and anger I had accumulated against her will be better. I decide to take more interest in her interests of painting. I will encourage her, finance her, and make some arrangements to market her creations. As for her job she is fighting for, it is very improbable that she would get it. Yet I will support her. I will talk to her regularly and listen more to what she says. I search for a book on schizophrenia in Hindi. There is one available published by an NGO. I buy the book and decide to educate my mother about this illness.

After writing down this plan, I open my twitter account. It has been long since I had logged in. The feed is full of the news of the passing off of a self-made Bollywood actor who died by suicide. People are vying for the blood of families which ruled Bollywood. They allege these nepotistic families have killed him by sidelining him. They are after his girlfriend as well, someone who had tried to help him. Everybody wants justice for the actor and boycott the films of the nepotistic actors of Bollywood. Even my friends from the Institute, who knew my condition and never came to help me, are writing about the apathy of Bollywood. People never judge themselves harshly and are always ready to pounce upon others.

I want to learn more of this story so I search the web. The actor was in depression and consulting a psychiatrist for bipolar disorder. His career graph was going very well. One news article talked about how he had psychotic thoughts of film directors coming to kill him. I could so easily relate to the actor. It occurs to me that I know what had happened to him. My problems started with depression and then took a deeper turn. People left me too when they realized I was mentally ill. I was trying hard to hide my mental illness from everybody as well. There are some differences. He was an actor and I was a PhD student. He went to a psychiatrist soon enough and I did not. He was successful in killing himself and I was not. Grief filled my heart like heavy and continuous rainfall fills the dry ponds of villages. I shut down twitter and pray for his soul telling him I know what you went through and may your soul rest in peace.

I have dinner, talk to my voices, take my medications, and go to sleep dreaming about the actor having a lovely time in heaven.