The Great Brain Robbery

- Rakesh K Alshian

In the 2001 biopic on Iris Murdoch, the much-acclaimed British philosopher and novelist, a mesmerising Judi Dench plays the older Murdoch in the throes of losing her mind. In one poignant scene, her husband John Bayley (essayed by Jim Broadbent), who has stood by her steadfastly despite her many sexual digressions, finally breaks down in a vitriol of ire and despair: “All your friends are finished with you! I’ve got you now! Nobody else has you anymore except your f***ing best friend, Dr. F***ing Alzheimer with all his f***ing gifts! I’ve got you now, and I don’t want you! I’ve never known anything about you at all, and now I don’t care!”

The agony of losing one’s self in the ruins of a crumbling decrepit mind is not peculiar to Murdoch alone. Nor is the anguish of her husband who has to somehow help her make sense of a progressively blurred and splintered reality. By the reckoning of the 2016 World Alzheimer’s Report, over 47 million people globally are in the grip of this merciless and elusive burgler of memories. And with large numbers of people living longer across the world, Alzheimer’s is expected to strike three times as many by 2050, surpassing cancer as the second leading cause of death after heart disease.

For all the boast about India being a young nation, with every two out of three people under the age of 35, it still has over 80 million people over 65, of which, according to one estimate, more than 4 million are affected by Alzheimer’s and other kinds of dementia. This makes India the third highest bearer of this dreaded burden, after China and the US. Taking care of such a legion of Alzheimer’s patients could take an extraordinary emotional, let alone economic, toll on the caregivers.