[Urbanstudy] Fw: posting

[sanjeevranjanmishra]

Sent from Samsung Mobile

-------- Original message --------
Subject: posting
From: manoj jha <jhamanoj01 at yahoo.com>
To: urbanstudygroup at sarai.net
CC: 

 
 
 
CONFINEMENT OF MENTALLY ILLS IN THEIR OWN HOUSES
 
Here in Darbhanga (the same may be the case with other places) many a mad people are confined, not in the so -called mental homes like that of Erwadi, Tamilnadu where 27 of them were charred to death in 2001, but in their own houses. The houses which could have been the place of care and comfort have metamorphised into prison after the victim’s illnesses become long-some. One can not say that whether so is done due to the myth regarding them that they are dangerous so they have to be locked away or due to the relative’s apprehension that putting them free might result in their suicide etc., but confining them brings many- faceted freedom for relatives. Some months ago, news about such a victim came in local media; details of which are given below.
 
One house is locked for months in Fakirganj Mohallah of Darbhanga. Every   door and window is closed. It seems that none is inside the house. House -owner is a reputed person, a retired ADM. He is not in Darbhanga from three months. Currently he is out of Darbhanga for attending a religious ceremony. But someone is living in this three-storeyed building. It can be said that house owner has made her captive for three months. She is crying and one can notice her desperate voices   while passing this house. It is strange and ridiculous to think that how she manages to keep herself alive, while no one is inside the house. But, she is able to get her food from his neighbours who visit her by tresspassing and throw some food in the room where she is confined.
 
 
 
Name of the captive is Nikku. She is divorcee and has taken shelter in her father’s house from quite a long time. She has got fairly good academic career and married with a person who was then working in UAE. Some years ago they got separated. This separation proves to be a trauma for Nikku and she ultimately lost her senses. (so is told by her friends and neighbours regarding the etiology of the disease  which may not be medically valid explanation). Meanwhile, her mother also passed away. So she was left   to live at the mercy of her father who deserted her and pushed her in such a situation. When news about Nikku came in media local police intervened and lodged a case against Nikku’s father. Nikku’s father told to police authority on phone that djinn’s saayaa  (shadow) is on her, so she had been put in such a condition. No one can tell that what will be the fate of Nikku but words of Thomas Szazz, champion of anti-psychiatry movement who fought against incacertia in mental asylums and acted as a prime force behind opening up of OPDs in psychiatry departments, according to whom
“ our adversaries are not demons, witches, fate or mental illness. We have no enemy we can fight, exorcise or dispel by ‘cure’. What we do have are problems in living ---- whatever these be biologic, economic, political or sociopsychological”. 
   Mental illness is as myth, whose function is to disguise and thus render more palatable the bitter pill of moral conflicts in human relations.( Thomas Szazz, The Myth of  Mental Illness , American Psychologists, Vol. 15   , P-113-118).
 
 
Cheers
Manoj
Do you Yahoo!?
Next-gen email? Have it all with the all-new Yahoo! Mail Beta.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mail.mail.sarai.net/pipermail/urbanstudygroup_mail.sarai.net/attachments/20150227/0af6875f/attachment-0001.html>