The Bearable lightness

In cities as far apart as Chennai and Ratnagiri, people living with mental illnesses are being reintegrated into society through independent homes and facilities as part of a new approach to care. In these rooms, bonds form between those who know each other's silences and care is built on the belief that no one is alone

- Chinki Sinha

Girls, Uninterrupted

"In a strange way we were free. We'd reached the end of the line. We had nothing more to lose. Our privacy, our liberty, our dignity: all of this was gone and we were stripped down to the bare bones of ourselves" -Susanna Kaysen, Girl, Interrupted

Chennai

FROM inside the gate of the facility, Angela (name changed) sang the song 'Hotel California' by The Eagles.

"You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave," she whispered at the end, and laughed.

For many years now, Angela has lived at the Emergency Care and Recovery Centre (ECRC) of The Banyan in Chennai’s Mogappair and wanders around cracking jokes, laughing, singing and sometimes, fighting. But they know and she knows it, too. She has nowhere to go.

Nobody to come fetch her. She is here and this is home. For around three decades, she has lived here and every morning, she gets up at 4 am to pray. She does the necessary things. Have tea, bathe, take medicines, work at the reception.

Her story is like an ellipsis continued. But it isn’t about the details. It is about the freedom from the shame that mental illness brings; the stigma of it all. At first, Angela didn’t want to tell her story. But later, she said she would like to tell it to us. For 25 years, Angela has been with The Banyan. At different centres. She was lost and found many times. Once in Thrissur, another time in Ooty and yet in another instance, in Pondicherry.

She sits straight, her bangs neatly parted. And she begins her story. A story where she is loved and wanted and then, hated and abused. She remembers being beaten up for having affairs in a boarding school. She ended up in a mental hospital. They would give them electric shocks. She was stripped naked.

"It was a lot of torture," she says. "I know what it is to be a mental patient. But the past is in the past. God says, one day at a time."