When madness is accepted as norm!

Shutter Island (2010)
Director: Martin Scorsese

Back when India was a newly independent nation, its Prime Minister, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, was officiating the opening of a psychiatric hospital in New Delhi. As part of his visit, he did a walkabout. All its inmates were excited to have a PM visiting them. All of them were standing smiling, waiting for Nehru to speak with them, except one. He was sitting in a corner, looking away, staring into space. Nehru approached him. 

"Hello, how are you?" told Nehru. "I am the Prime Minister of India. How do you find this hospital?" The man slowly turned around, lifted his head to look at the Premier, and replied, "Yeah, that is what I thought when I first arrived, too. Don't worry, they will give you medicine, and you will be alright!"

That is how it is. There is a thin line between reality and insanity, which is detachment from reality. It is all about perspective. Imagine telling the world that someone is watching you all the time, and you will be labelled as having paranoid schizophrenia in the 1980s. Now, it is legitimate to have closed-circuit TV all over the place to monitor citizens for the public's safety. Remember when the Soviet Union and the USA had such high numbers of schizophrenics. The peculiar thing about their condition is that a Soviet schizophrenic will be labelled normal in the US and vice versa. 

We are well aware of the concept of gaslighting and Munchausen Syndrome by proxy. Popularised by Ingrid Bergman's 1944 film 'Gaslight', a husband tinkers with the home fittings and events around the wife to convince her that she is turning mad. Munchausen Syndrome, by proxy, is another favourite theme of Hollywood. Here, the parent or the caregiver, usually with advanced medical knowledge, will wilfully keep their subject either by exaggerating symptoms or by poisoning their ward themselves to give themselves (the caregivers) a sense of importance. 

It seems that it is easy to suggest mental illness. If one does not conform to the perceived acceptable mode of conduct, he is deemed a deviant. He is ignorant if he does not subscribe to one way of thinking. If a specific ritual is not followed, he is unstable. A label would be put upon him by the rest. 

There will come a time, as is already happening now, when bizarre behaviours that used to be frowned upon are considered normal. Many of these acts go under the cloak of self-expression and privacy setting. One is not supposed to bat an eyelid when a hirsute, phenotypically male person with a full moustache and beard decides to don a body-hugging dress and put on a 6-inch stiletto, strutting his posterior to an unamused crowd.

This film is an interesting one where the viewers are left to guess what is real and which are imagined. What is right and what is wrong? Between good and evil. Two US Marshalls are sent to investigate the missing case of an inmate of a hospital for the criminally insane. As the Marshalls get deep into their case, they realise that many things do not match.

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They can see clearly now that the rain is gone!

I am a jealous guy and a confused one at that. Jealous after my two recent observations and conversations with two seemingly mature men who seem so cocksure about everything happening in their lives. I am confused because I am still groping in the dark, trying to make sense of this chance of a lifetime handed to me - to live my life.

Specimen #1 is an octogenarian, a well-established academician whose mind is still as sharp as a man half his age. To top it up, he is still at it - supervising research papers and reading the latest in his field of interest. Naturally, I have a lot of admiration for his stature, his intellect and age. I tease some gems of wisdom from his experience for my consumption.

I was surprised when he attributed all his achievements to the Divine Powers. There was nothing that he did that was his. I asked him definitely he would reach crossroads and would have floundered or perplexed, not knowing which direction to go. It was about these moments that I was interested. Those moments where he was in a betwixt and between that a crucial decision had to be made, I wanted to desperately know how he made those decisions. Again, his answer was simple. He guides me; I do not make any decisions.

I knew he had a giant murthi erected in his prayer room. And he spent a good few hours sitting, praying, meditating and physically talking to the deity. I have been informed that He talks back.

Specimen #2 is another professional who went through a rough patch early in his life. That event left an indelible mark on him. Still, he has come out of it and found peace, so he says. Striking a conversation by chance, he narrated his life lessons. He found solace in solitaire, the company of himself. People are mostly sending negative vibes; stay away. Easily said, I thought. Whether he likes it or not, a professional has to rub paths with people with different dispositions in the scope of his work. Part of his challenges is to ward off these negativities and be professional. Somehow, my twisted mind, at that juncture, I visualised an image of an ostrich burying his head under the sand, refusing to appreciate the dangerous things around him.

My friend advocated activating the body's chakras and awake the kundalini to attain perfect health, which he had achieved. And he was willing to be my guru to pass that knowledge to me.

Being the eternal sceptic I am, I just took these as conversations one has with a fellow train passenger. Come to each other's destination, all the talks and advice given to each other are forgotten as each finds themselves back in the churn of life.

Meanwhile, I remain confused. But happy that, at least, these two specimens do not have to search. The mission in life is crystal clear. They can see clearly now that the rain is gone. Some would classify them as enlightened and have found the reason for their being. Sadly, it would be enough for a man of proof and science. In their interpretation, they are having hallucinations, the grandeur of reference or probably detached from reality!

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence.