Dr.Rudhran's Nijangal...

Have you read Dr. Rudhran's "Nijangal"? I had read this book long back. Was re-reading this book. Rudhran has this nice way of explaining Psychology to everyone, even to a layman. I for one was impressed by his program series that came in RAJ TV. That led me to buy this book. This is a nice book on personality disorders. It's a good book and a must read if you are interested in psychology but have no strings attached to that part of science. Maybe this book will give you a thread. I had translated one of the chapters from the book some time back, Did it for timepass then... I present it here.

Hysteria..

I didn't understand the way she was. Would you feel fear, pity, revulsion and mock all at one instance. I felt them. Her tongue was what caught my attention . What happened to the tissues beneath the tongue, my physiologist brain was asking too many questions. Her tongue was stretched out that long. I should say now, the tongue is not beautiful. The whole bulk of it has come out, she is screeching in a hair raising tone. Uf, I am not here, I don't need this. But, I couldn't run. Her head is shaking now. You would have never seen this in your life. It wasn't the perfect cinematic vision of tossing a head off a neck, neither was it an amateur try. It was something in between them. Her head would have rolled a 270 degree, I'd swear. She was in tears. A violent houl was coming out of her mouth. Her face looked like asking "what it all meant", but the sound that came was a big "eeeee…" followed by a "uvvvv.." I am done with this, I can't tolerate this one bit more. I came out of the room.

This has been happening for three days now. Me, I am a doctor. I live my life with lots of patients visiting my clinic. I am busy. And the women we saw now is my wife. Yes, I did try to do something for her. I even tried tranquilisers, the first two days. I tried to keep her calm, get myself some time to sort it out. I didn't know what it was or what to do. I had to help her, and I found no other workaround than tranquillising. But today, it was total defeat. I could have better injected her with distilled water. The tranquliser I injected was no different.It seems that an "aaaa" has got added to her vocabulary of eeeee and uvvvv now. That aaaa implies pain, I realise the pain in her sound, do you hear it.

The door bell rings.Its Vinay, my next door neighbour.

"what's happening doctor…" was the way he entered.

I asked him to take a seat. "Mythili, Vinay has come" I hear the loudness of a silence from the room where mythili is. Vinay was gazing at me, I gazed back. We smiled as a formality.

"what then…" he says.

I thought of a metaphysical "What am I to say. Who knows what then? Is there one such thing as a then.." sort of an answer. But kept quiet. I smiled.

"Doctor, it seems that your wife is ….. mm.."

Now what, he has opened the scene. Its my turn to give a speech. So I talked. It turned out to be a cry rather than an explanation. Its three days now. I didn't understand what was happening in the beginning. It was growing with each day, and a ball started rolling in my stomach. Now after my best armour named valium became useless, I couldn't help but think of the reason which I didn't want to think about. No, It couldn't be that. It shouldn't be.

After listening to all this, this dumbo left saying "OK doctor, just let me know if you need anything… my wife is there to help".

His wife, Good God, I would rather call devil than calling her. She was the billboard I needed the least now.I went inside. She is sitting in a corner, gazing at the floor between her thigh. Hair all tossed over the front. I sense fear in my voice when I called out "mythili". She raised her head and faced me. This is not it. This is not the face which chides me in bed. The face which used to charm me never had the rudeness it has now. This is different. Something else. It started its "eeeee" again.

I should not believe in exorcism. I am a product of science. I am a doctor. But this isn't my wife. My wife is a thirty year old house wife. She is a commoner. She is my life, a women enjoying her life at home, doing the occasional help at my clinic. Spending time joyously watching mega serials. Exalting at small gifts. Considers going out to temple together as a picnic. Enjoys my presence always, my ease out point in life, but this is not her. This is something else.I decided not to go to the clinic. I understood the rhythm of the noises she was making now. It was getting used to me.

It was then, my other neighbour came. After sitting gazing at each other for a while, he started telling me all the exorcist stories he knew. Started telling me about chottanikkarai. Vinay's wife too had come by this time. She started telling stories about yaervadi dharga, sholingur. All these places were far away. How would I take this thing that far. Finally we decided on a place some forty kilometres from Chennai.

Even the taxi driver knew the place. The exorcist was in a hut there. The hut was inside a garden with lots of greenish creepers. Somehow the place looked peaceful. We took this there and made it sit. He was sitting with eyes closed and this was sitting idle. Vinay and my other neighbour were outside. The taxi guy had gone for a smoke. I was sitting gazing around the hut.

" mm…. OK" he said. He kept a piece of brass plate on Mythili's hands.

She leaped out shouting " AAhhh". He laughed.

He asked me to go out. There were lot of people outside. Some of them had the expression that I saw in a mirror two days back. Some faces had faith. Some had fear. He came out after ten minutes.

" someone has done a mystic thing against your wife. She is being possessed by a little girl's soul now. But it can be removed"

I started thinking about how much it would cost.

"put eleven rupees on that plate and come in"

He wrote lots of things on a paper, rolled it and put it into that brass plate. He asked me to tie it around Mythili's neck. He spit on her head.

" It will be OK, you may leave"

I didn't understand a thing, We all started leaving. We all bowed to him ( even mythili bowed) and left. We came home. Mythili slept off immediately.

It was nine in the night. She woke. I was caught with fear again. She came by my side, touched my fore head.

" aren't you feeling hungry". This is my mythili. I wept. I wept for 15 minutes together keeping my chin on her shoulder. She started crying too.

"what is this, why are you weeping" she asked." you are making me cry". We went to bed without having dinner.

My friend is doing his D.P.M. He laughed on hearing this.

" this is called hysterical dissociation, brother… what the exorcist did is called a suggestion, scientifically"

"She didn't remember a thing she went through"

" You are a doctor. you did this!. Its shame on you" he said"

I gazed at him for a while. I thought about the exorcist and his face for an instance. My mind said that I should believe him, he made my mythili ok. If this was not true, how is mythili ok now, it all happened after going to him.

"At times, these suggestions work temporarily, guru. But beware of relapses". With his doctor's attitude.

Again…. Not again.. I am not ready for that… what should I do if it happens again.. should I go to the exorcist or should I go to the psychiatrist. What should I do. I sat gazing at him.

This is called hysteria, or Dissociative disorder in psychology.. we all would have seen or heard lot of things like this in our own life. Many of us would have seen people behaving as though god possessed them when we go to temple. People behave possessed even while watching movies about godly people or god.Hysteria, gets its name from hysterus. Hysterus means Uterus. In olden days people were under the misinterpretation that this problem arises due to uterus problems in women and hence was named that way. In modern psychology it got changed to lot of other names… one of them is Dissociative disorder.

So what is this? Ghost, Pent up soul, Muni, Saami, Satan, Mogini, Paei anything that possesses anyone are all considered to be by products of this disorder. All these by products are things we formulate and are in line with our cultural and transformational growth. They are imbibed with inspirations from the life we have seen and the way we grew. That's why we very rarely see a Hindu being caught by a Christian God or Satan and vice versa. Literacy, social status, and cultural beliefs decide this.

When a God or Satan possesses you, you can do things which you normally can't. You allow yourself to give a damn about society, about your responses towards the society. Your mind allows you to do things which are not normally recognized in a society. Your social gesture goes away. Normally this behaviour is intended towards some expectation. You expect things to change around you, donno how and act possessed. The change you expect may be anything, a social change, or people's attitude towards you. Thats the logic. But calling it phony or an act wont be right. The mind needs the sort of aggressive play it does, to relieve itself at times.

These sort of problems, even if they look hard superficially - are very normal, simple mental disorders. Hypnosis helps. 'Suggestions' are the best way to solve the problem. This may come to anyone, men-women, no caste/religion barred. It may come to anyone in a stringent atmosphere with a loosened individuality. You can take these people to a priest, exorcist or to a psychiatrist. All of them help. It is better to take them to a sort of a person or to the cult where they have more belief. Psychological treatment helps in solving the problem all together.