Dr. Anil Menon folded the Malayalam newspaper and looked around at the fellow passengers in the air-conditioned compartment of the train. There were not many and most seemed to be sleeping. Looking out through the window , he was yet again captivated by the natural beauty of Kerala. Now for the information of the readers, Kerala is a southern state in India renowned for its natural beauty, high literacy etc. Not many people know that the same Kerala, perhaps because of the heavy westernised influence it always had, is also the state with the highest number of alcoholics, mental patients esp. With depression and patients with psycho-sexual problems.
Being the state with the highest number of expatriates, it has an affluent society with all its associated baggage. There are many families where the men slog it out in the middle east, UK or US and the women and kids live in palatial houses with all luxuries. While it opened up a world of unrestricted luxury for the kids, most often the young women were left emotionally insecure and sexually frustrated.
Their sexual life was limited to the 2 weeks of holiday their husbands would have in a year and not surprisingly some of them looked out for other 'avenues' to vent their sexual frustrations while the unlucky majority ends up in the psychiatrist's couch! Anil had gone to Malappuram to attend a 'shrinks' conference [at least that's what his wife thought!] While his main purpose was to meet some of his 'favourite' patients whose husbands were digging gold in Dubai!! 3 days of multiple 'sexual therapy' had left him drained and satisfied. Sitting comfortably in the quiet train, he went down the memory lane how it all started.
Being the only son of a doctor couple, his parents were shocked when Anil expressed his desire to become a psych. After he finished his medical school. Unlike in the western world, psychiatric diseases are still considered a social stigma in many parts of India and the patients as well as the doctors in that branch are looked upon by the public as if they were aliens or social outcasts. However Anil was always fascinated by the mysterious ways of the human mind and that interest grew after reading the works of Sigmund Freud. When he joined the specialty, he remembered, all the senior professors were very skeptical of Freud saying that his theory of sex being the root cause of most mental diseases were a reflection of the western society's obsession with sex! They believed that such problems did not exist in our Indian society, where sex was not a main issue for our people brought up in a traditional way!! How far was it from the truth, which is that man wherever he is has only two basic needs-food and sex!
Anil used to get excited and frustrated at the same time, when his friends in the medical and surgical specialties used to boast about their exploits with the young ladies attending the outpatient clinics of the medical college, complaining of vague chest and tummy pains, while all that they wanted was a good fuck! His friend Tony, intoxicated with all the local liquor, in fact said that they were lucky to practise in kerala with all its sexually frustrated women who saw doctors as a source of free 'safe' sex, as no-one would ever be suspicious of regular visits to the hospital!
Anil was at that time posted in the elderly unit with mental diseases and he started to wonder whether he had chosen the wrong 'field'. Everything changed in the second year when he was posted for 3 months to the smaller psychiatry wing in the outskirts of the city! He realised that in the teaching atmosphere of the medical college, patients were treated with adequate staff in a scientific way, while in the small periphery the hard-pressed staff had only one way of dealing with these 'mad nuisances' [as they called them!] -sedate them and live peacefully!! The message was driven home to him the first day by Sister Annamma-a bossy lady in her mid40's-who was in charge of the unit for more than 10 years.
She told him that while all the talk of dealing with the patients with mania without over sedating them was ok for a big hospital, that would never work in 'her' 'hospital with a permanent shortage of staff. Anil initially found it difficult to accept but after his first on-call duty he realised that this was totally a different cup of tea! The on-call room for doctors was inside a ward-a patients room converted for on call purposes!! It contained small rooms with patients with all problems ranging from simple depression to frank mania!!
The duty nurses room was in the other end of the unit and since the night staff included just 1 doctor, 2 junior nurses and 2 assistants, it was inevitable that everyone had to pull in their weight. How easy were the previous on-calls, Anil thought. Sister Annamma's therapy was simple-give sedative tablets to the potential 'troublemakers' at 10 PM and then hit the bed at 12! However there would be some 'bastards or bitches' [her language was very colourful!] Who would refuse to get knocked out, disturbing other patients. These pests would then be brought to the room close to the doctors or nurse's so that someone could keep an eye on them.
It was his 3rd on call night and Anil was dozing off in his room when Annamma came in-'Anil doctarae', aa molly, panna pulayadi mole, shalyam thodangii' [that bitch, Molly has started trouble] . She gave Anil the case notes-Molly was a patient with bipolar disease-which means that she could be depressed at times and on other occasions she could be in a state of hyperexcitement and mania.
