CHAPTER SIX: ASYLUM!
The next morning had its own share of surprises. My aunt woke up very early in the morning, re arranged her sari, tied back her hair, and started speaking softly as always. She came up to the window, and holding on to the metal bars, calmly waited for someone to pass by. The housemaid who worked for the landlord, was the first one she saw and she politely asked;
– “Pushpa, how are you? Someone seems to have mistakenly locked the door from outside, can you please open it up?”
Her voice was back to its usual feminine, respectful version.
Pushpa aunty was well aware of the happenings of last night, and she started mumbling something in reply, but failed to find the right words. Without knowing how to respond, she decided to flee the scene and inform the others on the progress.
A few others walked by and she made the same request to everyone. Part of the window was visible from the main road outside and she even pleaded to the people on the street. Some of them were puzzled at this request and one good samaritan decided to come inside the house, and do something to save the lady in distress. He walked in and finding my father at the entrance, announced in a reprimanding tone;
– “How irresponsible of you! Are you aware that the lady of the house has been mistakenly locked inside the house?”
My father did his best to hide his irritation, and feigning an apology, assured him that he would handle it right away, and escorted him back to the street and shut the main gate on his face. My uncle was feeling very uneasy at this point, aggravated by the soft voice of my aunt, who was almost crying out for help.
– “Is anyone there? Can someone please open the door? I am stuck inside. I have plenty of work to do”
There came a point when my uncle probably made up his mind to go and open the door, but my grandma was keeping a close watch on him and immediately warned him;
– “Don’t even think of it. It’s all just an act!”
At that, my uncle refrained himself from taking that bold step for the time being. But as time went on, he started feeling guilty and around noon, he was making things very difficult for my father, with his persistent requests. My father was himself in two minds, but somehow, with a strong assertion, he dismissed my uncle every time he pleaded to open the door. Hearing my aunt’s voice and pleas, most of us in the household felt pity for her, and some felt that she might be fine now, and it was inhuman to keep her locked up by herself. My brother, being the eldest, was in charge of managing the three of us, but my cousins were both visibly under a lot of stress. Rana snuggled up to me and innocently asked me;
– “Do you think mom is a ghost now?”
Finally my dad decided that if everything stayed as it was till 4 pm, he would open the door and let my aunt out. However, much before the deadline arrived, just after lunch, my aunt‘s pleasant morning mood changed into her scary avatar of last night. She even started throwing some of the smaller items from the showcase, through the window at the people outside. Her voice became hoarse and masculine again and she pointed a raging finger at my dad and threatened him;
– “Tui ei shob er pechhone, dekh tor ki kori!” [You are the one behind all this, wait and see what I do to you!]
The question of opening the door did not arise again after this hostile threat, but soon after, when my aunt started to scream “amake khete de, khide peyechhe” [Give me food, I am hungry], it struck everyone that she had not had anything to eat since last evening. My dad felt understandably guilty, and decided to make the effort to feed her. The question however was, how to serve her the food?
My dad sent my mom to buy some strong sedatives and they dissolved it in water, and passed the water through the window grills, as my aunt had also been screaming for water. She drank it all in one gulp and demanded for more. She was served some seven or eight glasses of water, which she drank in one gulp each time. Slowly but surely, the meds started to have their effect, as she quit her standing position and sat down on the floor after some time, and another ten minutes later, started to doze off gradually. Initially she would wake up from time to time and growl furiously at us, but in half an hour, she seemed to be sound asleep. Yet, no one found the courage to open the door and serve the food.
Eventually, my dad with some help from my uncle, somehow managed to open the door and sneak in a steel plate with some steamed rice and a bowl of dal (lentil soup). They figured, it might not make much sense to feed her the vegetables, let alone the fish item, on this occasion. They placed the plate inside and without making any noise to risk waking up the person, retreated silently and closed the door from outside again.
My aunt woke up almost two hours later, glanced at the food, and without a word, gulped it all down in minutes, as if it was a small sweet dish. She was still hungry, and yelled for more food, but that was all that could be arranged at that point. The rest of the evening continued in pretty much the same manner, with my aunt constantly yelling at people, especially cursing at and threatening my dad, most of the time calling him by his name. This sounded very weird to all of us, since my father was her elder, and by tradition, she would never call him by his name. Before that day, that is.
As night descended, she collapsed again, fatigued partly due to her own antics and partly due to the sedatives, which were still impactful within her. She was served food again, this time a significantly larger quantity, which my cousin Raja would describe as “More than double of what my father usually eats!”
The next day, my dad speculatively explained to my uncle that this could be a case of mental illness, and he wished to consult a psychiatrist from a mental hospital. Although my grandma laughed hysterically at this suggestion, and reaffirmed her belief that it was an evil spirit, my father was a man of logic, and was convinced that medical science would have an answer to this strange behaviour. Around 11 am, he set out and returned home around 3 in the afternoon, when my aunt was sleeping from another fresh dose of sedatives. The morning had seen her ‘calm’ incarnation, while the afternoon found her in her more ‘activated’ avatar, before she was given those sedatives, along with her water, now served in a small plastic bucket, to force her to sleep off.
My dad had come in an ambulance with four ward boys from a mental hospital, accompanying him. The hospital was an old establishment, in the northern part of the city. Apparently the doctor, after hearing this story of violent behaviour, did not wish to risk the safety of the patient and others around her, and wanted to admit my aunt to the hospital right away. Despite some initial reluctance, my father had agreed, assuming the doctor would know how to treat the patient best, and it would be unfair to let emotions come in between.
It was however, not as easy for him to explain this to my uncle, and expect a similar rational response. My uncle was furious; he also felt a sense of betrayal that his brother had taken such a critical decision, all by himself. But my father was impressively persuasive, and using some of the words he gathered from the doctor himself, explained with a hint of warning;
– “Mental patients can be very dangerous. They need to be handled very carefully in a special environment and by professional people. Sleeping pills and even electric shock might be needed to calm her down, in those uncontrollable situations. These are people who treat patients like this and they know their job. We are all helpless here. Don’t worry, your wife will be fine soon and I will personally bring her back home!”
This did little to comfort my uncle however, and even my dad was not entirely convinced that this was the right decision. But this seemed to be the only solution in hand, and they eventually decided to go ahead with it.
What followed next, was beyond our wildest imagination. The four ward boys entered the room when my aunt was sleeping and at first, tried to inject her with a strong dose of Valium. At the prick of the needle, my aunt woke up and started to struggle. The four men used their cumulative force and pinned her down and injected her forcibly, but my aunt was nothing short of a superwoman herself. A major scuffle broke out and she pushed, shoved and flung these four adult men as if they were little kids, and in no time, the four guys were scampering out of the room, happy to get away while they were still breathing. One was limping due to a broken leg while the others had minor injuries and visible bruises as well. One gentleman was bleeding from the nose, where a copper bowl, launched like a missile, had hit him.
They were all shouting “Help! She is not human!” and running for their lives towards the door with my aunt in hot pursuit, when all of a sudden, she just collapsed at the door with a loud thud. The valium had taken its effect!
Coming up next: CHAPTER SEVEN
