Till counsellors do us part

Seventy-two-year-old Mrs Lakhanpal looked chuffed at a function held at the SNDT College by the city police early in May to felicitate the couples who had approached them for a divorce or had complained of marital discord but had later patched up their differences. The honour was a recognition of their dedication to the institution of marriage. Reconciliation after estrangement, though, wasn’t as easy as waving a magic wand. The couples, to a great extent, owed it to a group of women among the audience — members of the Mahila Dakshata Samiti, the in-house marriage counselling team of the police department. It was easy to infer from her bright, discerning eyes and a no-nonsense attitude that Lakhanpal is their leader.  

That Lakhanpal is conscious of the power she wields is obvious when she is asked for her address over the phone. She simply says, “Go to Prithvi Theatre and ask anybody where Mummyji lives. He’ll show you.” Clearly, she wasn’t talking through her hat. Later, she explains that ‘Mummyji’ is a moniker affectionately bestowed upon her by her neighbours.

The go-to person
Lakhanpal is a troubleshooter extraordinaire. Whenever there’s trouble in the neighbourhood, she’s the first call. Recently, when a neighbouring toddler cut his head while playing, his parents called Lakhanpal to help them out.

So, how did she get into marriage counselling, that too for the police? “Seven to eight years ago, Amitabh Gupta, then deputy commissioner of police at the Bandra police station, started the Mahila Dakshata Samiti to help counsel the couples who went to the police with marital problems,” she explains. The police, she adds, found themselves in a pickle; if they tried to counsel the couples on their own, they would be accused of taking sides or, worse, of accepting bribes. “So, they decided to constitute a group comprising respected members of society, mainly women, who would be able to handle such cases.”

Lakhanpal, who had been the principal of CD Barfiwala High School and Junior College at Andheri fit the bill. Cases, she says, either come in a torrent or dry up for months. She hasn’t had a case for a few months now.

But the ‘lull’ hasn’t faded memories. She recalls the case of a young woman who had filed a police complaint of domestic violence against her husband. According to Lakhanpal, the husband used to get drunk and beat her up regularly in front of her kids, while her in-laws stood by silently. She lays her strategy cards on the table. “I use four techniques [while dealing with warring couples] — scolding, bribing, threatening, and divide and rule. First, I scolded the husband for beating up his wife. Then, I tried to bribe him with the promise of a better life if he gave up drinking. I also threatened him with legal consequences of domestic violence.”

The husband told Lakhanpal that he drank and got violent because his business was in the doldrums. He claimed that he got enraged each time his wife asked him about his financial situation. “I also counselled the wife. I told her not to ask her husband about money matters. If she knows that her husband is going through a rough patch, then she should be supportive and not confrontational. I met the couple four or five times after which they stopped coming to the police station.” Lakhanpal then took this as a sign that the two had made up.

The Mahila Dakshata Samiti counsels in teams. Lakhanpal does most of the counselling, while Baageshwari Sharma, the 52-year-old principal of Vesawa Vidya Mandir who has a warm smile, is her able aide. 

Qualified enough?
Lakhanpal’s methods of counselling will take trained therapists by surprise. Counsellors generally don’t scold or bribe or even drop their clients off in their car for a romantic walk on the beach. Lakhanpal is, however, confident of her abilities. “I have counselled many students in my 34-year tenure of being a teacher and a principal. Once, a student threatened to commit suicide. I calmed him down, fed him and then sorted out his problems. Many years later, he bumped into me on a street, touched my feet and thanked me.”

Lakhanpal argues that to be an effective marriage counsellor, one’s needs to be experienced at dealing with people and should have knowledge about laws relating to marriage, divorce, custody and alimony. But trained therapists are not convinced.

Dr Varkha Chulani, clinical psychologist and psychotherapist at Lilavati Hospital, says marriage counselling requires formal training and practice. Lakhanpal points out that the police prefer her counsellors over trained therapists because they offer their services for free, as a sort of ‘social service’. “Which trained therapist will come and devote time at a police station for free?”

Dr Chulani admits that getting professional therapy services for free is a difficult proposition, but the quality of counselling provided would be well worth the money.