A curious case of madness

Madness has always been an interesting subject for me. I have met my fair share of mentally ill people in my life- well, met is an exaggeration, I’ve seen them, or for an even more suitable phrase, observed them.

My first memory of a mad person is a person who had this ritual. Every evening, he would walk in front of every house of the village and ask for his brother. His brother used to work in the market in the nearest town. He used to sell kerosine. Kerosine was a controlled commodity. But people often needed more than their quota, so there was a black market. One could spend time deliberating on the topics of welfare state and free market, but that would be madness. So, this man of grey and black hair and a skinny physique like most people in that place, unaffected by weather, unaffected by ridicule, unaffected by silence- each day, everyday walk from the first recognizable house that could be called our village to the last- chanting the name of the owner in a weirdly Buddhist manner- asking whether they’ve seen his brother. For the children who grew in that village during that time it was just a matter of fact- as the sun rises and sets. For outsiders, it was quite a show.

For such an uninteresting place as my village, there were still plenty of reasons for people to visit. Unplanned visitors like chikki and sonpapri sellers who would give their sweets in turn for hair for reasons unknown. I was told countless times about its utility in making hairs for dolls, but I never bought the idea. Curd sellers who had these interesting things called bahangi, which is an arrangement of two clay pots hanging from the two ends of a wooden stick that can be carried on his shoulders shouting dahiiii in a characteristically musical sound of our region. Sometimes, and only sometimes, there would be sari or fake-jewelry sellers around whom ladies would gather. A purchase here was necessary in order to establish one’s family’s compared wealthiness, even if they didn’t have any cash at hand, even if they needed to borrow from someone else with excuses such as: I had a lot till this morning I swear till I had to clear up the milkman’s dues and I’ve asked my husband to bring me some in the evening; My elder son is a rascal, he must have seen where I keep the money; I only have the big denominations, the poor bangle seller won’t have enough changes etc. Often, the excuses would go in circles and the bangle seller had to go disappointed after a haggling of hours. These were perhaps residues of the old zameendari days when all the ladies knew which one house would certainly never disappoint them. Anyway, enough about my mother!

Apart from the role of serving as a make-shift marketplace for the vendors from nearby villages, the biggest events when outside folks were expected in the village was weddings- especially weddings of girls of the village. Back in those days, baraat would stay in the village for good 3-4 days and enjoy the hospitalities before going back to their home; unlike today when the baraat practically leaves the first thing next morning, that too only because the roads to the village are nothing if not dangerous for any kind of commute at night. Naturally, among these visitors, top in the list of the possible points of gossip would be the weird characters of the village.

It was in a sitting with the baraatis of one such wedding that I learnt about the history of our person of interest today. When some of the baraatis tried to taunt and obstruct him from his ritualistic duties, an elder of the village politely (because according to customs you cannot be rude to the baraatis no matter what they do) forbade them and upon being asked sat with us to tell the story of his losing his reigns of his mind.

Sukkho, our protagonist in his youth by all accounts was apparently a bright individual. He lived with his father Rattu, who was a priest. Their house was adjacent to their uncle Bala who along with Sukkho studied for priesthood under Rattu. Priesthood was not a generous profession in terms of money. All it could ensure was that you would not die hungry- sometimes not even that. And dying hungry could be quite the subject because Sukkho apparently was famous for being a glutton. Looking back it seems that he had a tragically high metabolism, because he was just bones and skin all over his body. As the story goes, his father was quite worried by this, but he had given his word to his wife that he would take care of this child. Rattu was known to have a temper. Once he had cursed a man whose goat grazed his vegetables and the very next day, the pregnant goat had died. Similar instances of him cursing some other people, animals and objects were known to the village folks- enough to have the superstitious lot believe that Rattu wielded some supernatural power because of his rote knowledge of Sanskrit that allowed him to earn a measly living through priesthood.

People of Titlipur were of a different caste. They were known to the people of my village as chamaar. The profession of the whole village was to skin dead animals and make leather and leather objects. They were considered lower caste and thus people from these two villages were forbidden from going to the other due to some ancient made-up decree by the heavens. Unforeseen tragedies would befall on not just people who broke these rules, but also their kin and kind. The chamaars were meant to be compliant and subservient to other castes. But, the times were changing and they had somehow started getting hideous ideas of self-respect. Since the chamaar were forbidden to go to the only existing temple which was in Sukkho’s village, they decided to erect a temple of their own. To erect is a glorious description for putting a stone under a tree, but in support of their venture, let’s say they did that. All they needed was a priest to come and bless the temple and then the temple would be able to take prayers. I know you see the irony, but even forwardness and equality have their own speed and their boundaries. Where would they find a desperate enough priest who would come to a chamaar village to bless their make-shift temple? This was the question that found its answer in an uneventful week Rattu and Sukkho were having in terms of their dietary needs. When the villagers saw Rattu talking to some chamaars from Titlipur, they immediately identified them and forbade him to even think about taking upon such ungodly work just for his belly. But they were also cautious as to not provoke Rattu and get cursed- God knows there were not enough goats in the village as is! As you might have seen coming, Rattu took upon the work and went to Titlipur which was some two hours away on foot, with the chamar folks to do the blessing ceremony, upon completion of which he could get enough wheat flour and money to see him through the next week.

When it started getting dark, Sukkho started getting worried. He started looking for people to go with him to look for his father. Our protagonist of dark skin color, big eyes, skinny build went from door to door asking for men, but all as fate would have it, nobody was there. Finally, he decided to go by himself. In the light of a lantern, he passed through the maize fields and the pagdandis, crossed the small bridge and reached Titlipur. Outside the entrance of Titlipur, near the houses of the low caste folks, in a ditch, he found dogs hounding over his dead father’s body separated from his head lying nearby. In a state of complete despair and dichotomy of whether to leave his father’s body be hounded by dogs or to sit there helplessly, he made a choice and picked his father’s head in a cloth and walked weeping all the way back home. By the time he reached his village, he had lost his senses. The people of the village had to trace back his steps to the fateful ditch in the other village to understand what had just transpired.

From that day, everyday, it became a psychological ritual for him to go from door to door asking for people to come with him to look for someone. The subject of his search changed over time from his father to his uncle and then to his only cousin.

In my naïve mind, I tried to understand his madness for a long time. I would run scenarios in mind, questioning whether if something could have happened differently, the man would still have his mind together. What if upon his calling the first time some villagers could have gathered and accompanied him to Titlipur, what if his father would have simply listened to his fellow villagers and not taken up to threaten himself to go all the way to Titlipur (of which I later understood the chamaar were only a small proportion of residents), what if the brahmin villagers who killed him were just a little bit less tied up in the narratives their own forefathers had weaved, what if there were provision of treatment of mental illness somewhere nearby in those days? What if.. But then I got lost in the asks of my own psychological rituals- distractions.

Nothing interesting happened in Sukkho’s life or our perception of him till one day, he died- allegedly poisoned by his cousin’s wife- his cousin who now had two kids, was the sole caretaker of the family and was perhaps struggling to feed one more mouth with such voracious appetite? Or perhaps he just died of natural causes and I wanted a tragic end to the story because of my inclination to Russian literature. Nobody knows!