Anjali- an offering above self
Just as the ogre desperately wants to be beautiful and wanted, so does the mentally ill pine for acceptance by family and friends when they recover. Ravi was a recluse languishing in a government mental hospital for 10 years before he recovered completely and was ready to return home. But on 15th August 2001 - the day before he was to be released, he killed himself. A prisoner of fear of rejection by friends and family, he could not cope with the thought. The day after he died, Ratnaboli Ray and Chaitali Chakraborty, the life-blood of Anjali (the organisation which assisted his recovery) were chatting excitedly on their way to work. Ravi’s successful recovery and his subsequent release would be a sweet victory for them and for Anjali. But when they reached the hospital, the news of Ravi’s death came to them with paralyzing violence and their hopes of organizing a cheerful farewell party for him numbed.
This is just one of the many incidents that tend to subvert the nothing short of heroic efforts that Ratnaboli Ray and her organisation make to revive lives of the mentally challenged in Kolkata (formerly Calcutta) and from all parts of India. Says Ray, “In India, mental health is one of the most neglected sectors with only 50 hospitals and 5000 trained nurses and psychiatrists to accommodate 75,000 patients while an estimated 20 million require active mental health care.” The overcrowding cannot escape the eye. The mentally ill are abandoned in institutions with little or no hope of reintegration back into their communities. Anjali is working to change all that.
Sumita Bandopadhyay (left) holding drama session in
a government hospital for the mentally challenged
Since July 2001, Anjali has been able to successfully reintegrate 22 patients and is working to ensure improvements in the existing anomalous system. Says Ray (also a working committee member of the Forum for Mental Health in West Bengal), “We campaign extensively to increase awareness among family members, community leaders, panchayats (village councils) and local youth clubs. Hundreds of people have participated in helping reintegration of mentally ill patients."
But what makes Anjali truly unique? Says Chakraborty, (Project Manager) “We offer a really comprehensive rehabilitation package, try to work in partnership with the government and adopt cost-effective approaches.” Life skills training, cognitive and creative therapy, recreation and relaxation therapy, occupational and psychotherapy, economic empowerment, organizing shelter and contact with the real world, form Anjali’s rehabilitation package.
Anjali’s approach is non-clinical, as it is supplementary to the treatment that patients are already undergoing. They learn block printing and incense making and sewing, more to keep themselves gainfully occupied rather than for outright commercial purpose. Anjali’s goals are not unrealistic. They understand that it’ll be a near impossible task for the patients to compete individually with big manufacturers and sell their products once they recover. Thus, the products they manufacture are informally marketed at local gift shops, to community groups and through friends.
The obstacles are too many. Ujjal Samanta, an M.A. student of Social Work at Vidyasagar University in Kolkata is involved in a field-placement project with Anjali. He recalled a number of home visits where he was not even allowed into the patients’ homes by their families to deliver news of their recovery. Most families do not want them back even when they recover completely. Some are willing to pay for homes where they can remain indefinitely instead of returning home. It takes enormous amount of patience and belief in the cause to keep on persuading these families till they agree to accept them back into the household.
At times, family members of the mentally ill continue to state incorrect addresses to the hospitals so that they cannot be traced. In these cases, it becomes even more difficult to trace them, let alone convince them to take back the patients who have recovered. “But when they recover, they guide us to the right address and their families are tracked down. Then the job of persuading them begins all over again. These people are harder to handle. But in the end, due to our relentless efforts, they always give in,” says Chakraborty.
Paucity of funds is another acute problem that exists. Says Ray, “ Every dollar helps the patients in so many ways. Many may feel that small contributions are not welcome. That’s not at all correct. I always tell them that even if one contributes only one dollar, that too will assist in making someone’s life better.”
There are 11 therapists administering Anjali’s rehabilitation and reinstating programs. “Counselors, human rights activists, trained psychiatrists, therapists, social workers and members of the community groups all work in unison to train hospital staff and authorities in contemporary methods of quality mental health care,” says Ray, just back from lecturing at Harvard University on Human Rights and Health.
In India, the majority of the population cannot afford quality mental health care from the private sector and have to rely on government health care. Anjali is working on a formal model to be implemented in government hospitals all over the country. Anjali’s integrative approach and training programs help hospital staff to independently continue the rehabilitation and reinstating initiative.
In an interview with BBC Radio in London on August 5, 2002, Ray mentioned the problem of stigmatization and ostracism associated with mental illness. Anjali, which literally means “offering” is all about healing and instead of shunning the patients, looking at their lives as a whole world of infinite possibilities and rehumanising them.
Theatre works in a positive way to help them take charge of their thought-process. On a visit to a government hospital, I saw Sumita Bandopadhyay conducting a drama session that assists patients to actively participate instead of passive reception. Her patience and the will to achieve the extraordinary were evident from the way she extracted youthful enthusiasm and myriad emotions from the mobile, rubbery faces of her students.
Ray’s contemporaries saw her efforts of creating and sustaining Anjali as nothing more than a quixotic indulgence which they were sure would not last. That has changed. This 5 feet, decisive, will-do, driven woman sends a ripple of hope every time she walks into the hospitals for the mentally challenged. Patients’ faces light up at the sight of her and they swarm around her the way moonlets encircle a planet. Standing witness, I realized that it is distressing when people lose money and fame but a lot more harrowing can be losing something more precious. And that is, time.
A surprise visit to Mohan’s home in Kankurgachi in Kolkata revealed that he has, in fact, completely recovered. His family rejoices with him. His kleptomania, another recurrent problem, is a malaise of the past. In his new avatar, Mohan handles his employer’s money everyday without pocketing a single cent.
The sun has come up. The ogre has a new face. And as he revels in his newfound identity, he wonders if the night was just a bad dream.
Names of the patients have been changed to protect their identities.
To assist Anjali you can contact:
Ratnaboli Ray
# A-302, Benubon,
93/2 Kankulia Road,
Kolkata-700029,
India.
Phone: + 91-33-24402241 / 2440-0449
Article Courtesy:
www.southasianoutlook.com
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