The myth of the great Indian sanity

A lot of stuff that goes on in families is swept under the carpet. Parish priests, counselors, suicide help-lines, NGOs, agony aunts in magazines, shrinks, all have their hands full. But still we persist with the myth of the Great Indian Sanity.

Privately we may think that the only person worse off than us is the TV soap heroine who returns from a miscarriage just in time to catch her best friend in bed with her husband who is suffering from leukemia and rapidly balding to prove it. Still we take considerable pains in public to appear in the lead role of Happily Ever After.

At college reunions, in sibling rivalry, at work or play, we arrive ‘arrived’. In time we hope to buy into our own PR. In most middle-class homes — as opposed to the other two extremes up and down who don’t care who knows what about them — silence is deemed golden very early in one’s childhood. ‘Don’t tell anyone about this,’ we are told about umpteen things from the age of two. And still all these mutterings and rumblings go on around us as, being officially a child, we are presumed to be deaf-mute till puberty.

Deeply damaged beings are bundled off to foreign countries to study, work or breed, to relatives’ homes, into arranged marriages and thence to somebody else’s care and concern. They come into our midst as guests, fellow travellers, caregivers or even dads. And we are taught to grin and bear it — not too much grinning though, just enough to suggest gaiety.

What does one do if insanity is a show coming soon to a person near you? Where does one go? Is it stunted EQ or full-blown psycho? How well-equipped are kith and kin? Who takes responsibility? In self-imposed distraction, we prefer to go into an astro-tailspin. We change the spelling of our names, wear multi-coloured rings, feed cows and little virgins. Divine intervention or medical, both are equally bankrupting.

Nervous breakdowns can be the norm among daughters-in-law who live in joint families, uncles can be pedophiles… An inability to match reality to dreams can cause chronic mental fatigue that could erupt in a maniacal laugh or two. But how does the other half cope? If one is a victim of one’s mind, the other is a victim of the victim.

If one can’t be the keeper of one’s own common sense, who steps up to the job? No one, for those around the ‘madman’ are chanting, ‘Nobody must know!’ Because this obstructs marriage proposals for the current bachelors and bachelorettes in the family, brings ‘bad name’ to the family, and other members can look forward to being shunned all their lives at the drop of a laugh.

The insane are offered ‘advice’, as if they are sulks. If nothing works, get the bloke married. Marriage cure madness — old Indian saying! Then begins the fanatical sweeping-sweeping of facts under the carpet. We are lucky to inherit this magic carpet at birth.