Some narrative fragments: aporias of who

To whoever wants to take interest in it!i

Abstract: Here are ‘some narrative fragments’, where ‘some’ moves in

the spaces with its own differences, from place to place, to locate ‘who’ is

there, in the labyrinth of states-societies-citizen-subject as a problématique:

‘aporias of who’, there theo-practice webs theory and practice together,

where difference of ‘analysis’ and ‘description’ becomes indescribable, at

least in a sense; these ‘fragments’, rather than ritual observance of

‘academic conventions’, like quotation marks, citation so on, plays with them

to unfold the problématique as the threads that nets multiplex ways a

‘specific case’ and a ‘state of terror’ with its difference of style both of

‘medical and legal sense’; perhaps ‘it woks’!

Keywords: subject, well-being, rights, power, resistance…

Perhaps one day one will no

longer knows

clearly what madness was….

Artaud will belong to the

ground of our language, and

not to its rupture ….

Everything that we

experience today in the

mode of limit, or of

strangeness or of the

unbearable, will have joined

again with the serenity of the

positive. And what for us

currently designates this

Exterior stands a chance, one

day of designating us….

Madness is breaking its

kinship ties with mental

illness, … madness and

mental illness are ceasing to

belong to the same

 anthropological entity.

(Michel Foucaultii)

Two or three years after

partition, the Governments of

India and Pakistan

remembered that, as in the

case of ordinary prisoners, an

exchange of the insane was

also called for. That is, that

the Muslim lunatics who were

in the lunatic asylums of

India should be sent to

Pakistan, and the Hindu and

Sikh lunatics who were in

lunatic asylums in Pakistan

should be handed over to

India. (Saadat Hasan Mantoiii)

Perhaps by “états

préoccupants” [translation of

‘the phrase “states of

concern”]-that is, states [and

also, ‘persons’ or rather

 ‘human’] that give us reason

to be concerned, but also

states [and also, ‘persons’ or

rather ‘human’] with which

we must be seriously

concerned, and with which

we must concern ourselves,

in order to treat their case

appropriately. Their “case”,

in the medical or legal sense.

(Jacques Derridaiv)

Sub: An unwanted ‘internment’-ship or becoming of a victim

as a ‘patient’ of the ‘regime’ of ‘mental health’ in an ‘Institute of

Mental Health’ at Lahore!

Neither it’s a ‘representative’ ‘case’v, nor a ‘typical’ or ‘modal’ case, it is just

a specific case: sometimes ago ‘I’ woke up, unusually, early in the morning

to complete a list of some French texts and let ‘me’ find somebody who

could take responsibility to ‘post’ that list and a small adjoining note to a

friend-who would like ‘to waste’ his time to find these texts for ‘me’, from the
sources ‘accessible’ to him as a doctoral candidate, even he informed and

offered that his sister, who is doing a doctoral dissertation on translation of

French literature into another language, may also be helpful in the search for

these texts-and fortunately had completed the list and accompanying note,

after that made a flask of tea, ate some rice left over from last dinner and

drunk a cup of tea, and went out in search of someone who would like to

take the responsibility for the post of the ‘letter’ (precisely, the enveloped

list and note with an address on the envelop), again luckily found another

friend, who was willing to take the responsibility to post the letter, and after

giving the letter to him with a request to post it today even without any

postage stamp on it with an expectation that the letter will arrive at its

destinationvi (latter, after returning from the ‘institution’, ‘I’ came to know

that even after a month the letter does not arrive or reached at its

destination, while the friend claimed, and there is no reason to doubt it, ‘he’

had posted the letter though without stamps as it was a possible option to

post a letter without stamps and whoever will receive the letter also bears

the cost); mission accomplished, so bought some ‘dal’vii (‘a split pea of

gram’) and ’chana’ (‘ gram’) for the cooking of that day’s next meal, came

back with the bought stuff, cleaned the ‘dal’ dipped it in water in a dish,

meanwhile the lady who used to clean the house had arrived, let her came

inside the ground floor of the house and locked the door again, where there

then, I was living in a state of terror from some unwanted ‘attendants’ of an

‘institute’, who took ‘persons’ to ‘Institute of Mental Health’ at Lahore

(hereinafter ‘institute’) for the ‘practice’ of the regime of ‘metal health’ (for

the context of this ‘state of terror’ see appendix A), and went to a wash

room; there then where, I had heard a bit of noise that resembled somebody

unlocked the door and some male voices whispered something and became

silent, it was not confirmed yet that the unwanted ‘attendants’ arrived or

voices are just a hallucination(!) produced out of fear; when ‘I’ came out of

the wash room and went to another room where ‘I’ could dry my hands with

a towel, there ‘they’ were really sitting, waiting to took a body in an

‘institute’, perhaps a routine job, I asked them why they came again, why not

they let me talk on phone (and pick the cradle) with the ‘authority’ who

authorized them to took me there where they ‘practice’ their regime of

‘metal health’, it seemed neither they are used to such arguments nor

interested in it, and they forced ‘me’ with their push forward strokes of their

hands, that let ‘my body’ moves forward in the direction, they wanted and

pushed forcefully to follow, and this way took the body inside an ambulance,

and it drove to its destined place(!); within an hour while making fun of ‘me’,

as it seemed to ‘me’, with such phrases ‘I love you’, ‘koi ganan sunaun’

(sing a song) and one of them started singing some parts of some songs,

everyone was/is laughing except ‘me’, ‘koi latifa sunaun’ (share a joke) etc.,

while I stared at them shockingly, the ambulance, after passing through

some roads and crossing the gate of an ‘institute’ arrived outside the ‘out

patient unit’ of the ‘institute’; I had had to sit there, in the ambulance, while

they the attendants’ and so called ‘guardian’) had had to do some sort of
preparation of the documents for another admission in the ‘institute’ (the

previous ‘institutionalization was also unwanted and force fully took place,

almost more or less four year before, and that experience heighten the state

of terror of the situation), unfortunately an urgent urge of urine demands the

body to have a slash and ‘I’ asked for it, I had been told to wait unless and

until documents are prepared!, latter when I got permission to have a slash,

and may be usual procedure, used again, pushing forward the body with

their hands, even when the body was already moving in the same direction

and towards the same place, perhaps at the same time a doctor (i.e. a

psychiatrist) was prescribing ‘emergency treatment’ and signing the

admission documents; ‘I’ asked the psychiatrists for a hearing, to tell ‘me’

why and on what grounds this whole regime of ‘mental health’ is coming in

action, and why not anybody listened to ‘me’, perhaps they don’t have time

for such bullshit, again ‘my body’ received push forward strokes for

‘emergency treatment’ even one can’t stand at a place of one’s choice for

one’s turn for ‘treatment’, from where a poster could be read, a poster that

hanged there inside the out patient unit but outside the room where

‘treatment’ is going to be administer, a poster about ‘schizophrenia’ by a

corporation who also produced and distribute ‘treatment’ that could be

prescribed as one of the available remedies for it, claiming or rather

informing among other information that there is no ‘tested remedy’ is

available for ‘schizophrenia’, just that much could be read in passing, before

receiving another push forward stroke, that seemed to be another routine

procedure, in practice an ‘injection’ that put a patient for some time (at least

two or three days) in a state of almost continuous doziness if not sleep,

there again it was asked repeatedly ‘why and what you are administering on

my body’, the nurse while staring at the face responded in an indifferent

voice and said ‘something for you’ and in an ironic tone told the name of the

‘injection’ (such a stubborn still asked questions and while don’t know what

to do with such information!); from there push forward strokes took the body

from one room to another, from one place to another, to complete the

remaining procedure to admit someone, now just became ‘patient’ at least

after a psychiatrist’s prescription and ‘emergency treatment’, meanwhile

passing through the procedure in every room and place repeated his bullshit

‘why, why, why…’ and ‘what you are doing’(!) and received back responses

either like the psychiatrist’s arrogant no or the nurses ‘irony’ or the

‘attendants’ strokes (!); from there, then they took the body that start feeling

drossiness into a ‘rickshaw’ and took the body somewhere else in the

‘institute’ and hand over to another ‘attendant’ the ‘patient’ now with a ‘file’

and went away; there then here just became ‘patient’ almost lost his temper

and start talking in a loud voice with the so called ‘guardian’ and

‘attendants’, such a piece of shit the ‘patient’, even become an ire, even

irate with the person -who on the behalf of another ‘institution’ called ‘joint

family’ just signed a medico-legal contract with the ‘institute’ that implied

certain medico-juridical liabilities and responsibilities according to certain

‘codes’ between two ‘institutions’ with regard to patients life course and also
in case death occurred there, these codes that have a particular relation with

laws make possible that metamorphoses of a body into a ‘patient’-and asked

his cellular phone to contact with somebody though expecting little from

anybody (as a sort of SOS email’s inability to stop this happening, the text of

the e-mail become appendix A in this narrative fragment), who would like to

do something for him in such circumstances, but of no avail(!); in the

meantime the body’s feeling of drossiness transformed into a demand for

sleep, ‘he’ laid down in a nearby bench of concrete and immediately fall

asleep, soon the body was being woken up by two persons and asked to

come to another place, the body moved to another place with a strong desire

to sleep again because of the state of drossiness, it was difficult to stay

awake and there again found another bench (of concrete) laid down and fall

asleep; there again soon the body was awaken and after the searching ritual

is completed, the body was directed to first floor of what they named ‘unit D’

–in practice that place is called ‘Utte’ (upside)and sometime ‘patients’ are

sent their as a punishment or just being terrorized by just mentioning it

alongside other threats like send you to a ‘cell’ (solitarily confinement), send

you for ‘bigali’ (literally mean electricity, a slang for ECT) etc.-in reality first

floor having patients from two wards from the ground floor namely ‘D-ward’

and ‘R-ward’, patients arrived there either because of their guardians are not

willing to stay with them (for a ‘patient’ to stay at the ground floor of the

wards it has to fulfill a condition namely a guardian of the patient to live

with him in the ward to take the responsibility of patient’s surveillance and
care)or as a punishment, the ‘patient who ire ‘Thalle’(below means ground

floor of award) have to send to ’Utte’(upside); the prescribed, authorized,

negotiated and governed destination for the body just became another

‘patient’ for a ‘practice’ or rather ‘treatment’ as they called it, that (‘Utte’) is

another world behind locked and sealed grills, saying it economically a place

where there somebody experience a continues state of terror, torture,

humiliation and stink, more or less hundred patients lived there (actually the

place is architected for more or less sixty patient!) a life of their own twenty

hours a day, seven days a week and at least of a month by each patient (it

seemed current regime of ’metal health’ there is trying to taking arbitrarily

one month as cut off time for the completion of so called ‘treatment’, though

this rule is not rigidly observed, even there are patients who lived there of

many months or even years, for example, it is common knowledge there is a

‘patient’ who lived their almost all of his life from childhood onwards, when

once ‘institute’ tried to ‘discharge’ him and ‘he’ the ‘patient’ was sent to his

‘home’ his ‘family was not willing to take in a ‘made’ person inside their

‘home’ and ‘he’ (the ‘patient’) told the ‘attendant’ who accompany him

‘chaloo apne ghar chaliea’ (let’s go back to home i.e. the ‘institute’), even he

knows that there he used to do ‘bounded labor’ all day, unless and until a

patient is being ‘discharged’ or as ‘patient’s’ say it got ‘rahai’ (released) from

that place now a days called itself the ‘institute’ , even some ‘patients’ who

also have the experience of ‘prison’ used to say ‘aih jail ton buri than ai’ (this

place is worse than prison or jail ), this may reminds someone

Foucault’s(1977 (Foucault)) formulation that ‘prison’ (more precisely

‘panopticon’ though he just appropriated the expression for the prison and

deployed with ambivalence) serve as a ‘diagram’ of most of other ‘modern

[at the same time colonial too!] institution’ i.e. ‘asylum’, ‘school’, ‘hospital’

etc in a ‘disciplinary’ society though ‘patients’ assert literally close

connection between two ’institutions’ like Foucault but emphases more on

the comparison of suffering between the ‘institutions’; that place accessible

only to prescribed persons who performs regular scheduled visits there

(regularly and daily only to ‘attendants’ and ‘nurses’ and irregularly and

occasionally to donors who donates and want to distribute by themselves

some eatables to patients, that little donating act make a little difference of

taste in patients mouths, under the supervision of attendants) for

prescribed, scheduled activities like distributing food, medical treatment ,i.e.

mostly what there called ‘dawai’ (medicine in the form of pills), taking

patients for check up, or for shave and hair dressing to barber, etc; there

behind the locked and sealed grills, the body just became patient received

first and last time ’Nan’ & ‘Channea’-because in a drowsy state just become

patient informed the attendant, who directed ‘him’ towards the prescribed

location that ‘I am hungry’, and after sometime, don’t know how much, the

body just entered the prescribed place and found a place i.e. a wooden

bench, lied down and fall asleep again-delivered by the attendant, there-

where ‘I’ went inside that world almost cut off from the outside by the locked

and sealed grills and grille door, where there nobody could enter without
permission and patient lived almost an ‘independent’ life even from the

other parts of the ‘institute’ in general, in a continuous state of terror,

torture, humiliation and stink, where there usually at prescribed time and for

specific activities others (other than patients as mentioned above)enter, and

whenever they enter there is a noise, as it seemed there, some voices talked

(only with patients) in a barking manner (not everyone excel in these

manner, even some tried other strategies like just loudness), when they put

their first feet on the step, in between the steps there is a grille door that

separates and behind that grille door there is a small space where many

scenes took place, from where other steps starts behind the grill in opposite

direction the inside space at the same time indivisible from the outside

where all those who forced to live there, behind the grills, share a more or

less similar and at once different destiny, with regard to ’ward’ and

patientness, within the divided prescribed space, with regards to certain

activities like shaving medical cheek up schedules, so on-start talking in

barking manner usually abusive and threatening remarks about patients in

general or sometime towards a specific patients in particular that could be

reinforced by actual ‘practice’ of those threats(after opening and closing the

grille door behind) like ‘Ton wich do rakkhna’( punches you twice at

neck)or ‘do chhittar pheran ga’ (hit you twice with sleepers), nothing

unusual, everything is just routine, there, it is a general assumption and

practice among attendants (it seems to be shared by psychiatrists, nurses

and even patients, that is the only possible and necessary course of action or
‘practice’) with some exception of frequency and intensity, some even excel

in these acts (one patient- another specific case, who used to come there i.e.

in the institute, almost and already over thirty years of suffering the institute

as ‘he’ used to remind other patients, and this time came after thirteen

years, interestingly that patient’s daily recitation of certain poems and

repeating of certain slogans and political analyses-he is/was very critical of

current political regime of ‘dictatorship’ of his state and often expressed his

irate feeling about it, seems to be more committed to democracy and critical

of dictators then leadership of his party (though some time latter the

leadership of the party trying to express the opinion like him, here not trying

to analyses the problematic rather just like to write the air ‘patient’ breath

there and that show the complexity of the small set of individuals living

there, e.g. another socio-political problematic very pronounced there, is

called there ‘Talban’, ‘mujahidin’ some with this marker too is/was there and

face fun and-or admiration according to someone’s choice and occasion!)

-gives an idea of his active political involvements, it comes to my mind, may

be he suffered another, previous, political regime of dictatorship of his state,

one day while he was passing by ‘my’ bed, ‘I’ asked him a strange question

about it, ‘he’ stopped awhile, turned his face towards ‘me’ and said in an

indifferent tone, ‘bund te korea khadhea si’ (yes, got some lashes at the

ass)viii and turned his face away and went towards his search for some puffs

of smoke, if it could be available somewhere nearby- once told that ‘ai bund

band kar denda wae, ehdea kolon bach ke raho’, he named the attendant
who is working there as old as the patient used to came, (he does not left

any way open, beware of him), that barking voice, usually followed by

‘hailing’ (even sometime patient just saw an attendant, or even more than

this without his coming, and starts hailing or mimicking the act by false ritual

performances, or even mimicking attendants’ manners), either recognized or

not unofficially named as a ‘nambardar’ (chief) by attendants, do a

attendance function with most of its flavors as a substitute, attendants

explicitly asked for such acts or legitimized it by such phrases ‘littar nah

pherea te nambardari nahe honde’ (if chief does not use torture, he could

not become or remain chief), it may hint towards the ‘authoritarian’

tendencies prevail in the state and society in general , these (barking-

hailing) are usual way to inform patients, why an attendant or someone else

care to put feet in the inside space-of continuous terror, torture, humiliation

and stink called wards- I was eating nan-channe, even some patient gather

together around ‘me’ and asking for ‘bass ikk burki ’(just one bite please) to

taste something other than what is distributed regularly for eating, even

some took liberty and took their (presumed) share of a bite without

permission(!) though others just asked for it, even after repeatedly asking for

it, didn’t received a bite, just ate some bites or a little part of it in such

circumstances, kid not yet used to the wardly manners inside that space(!),

and causally took a cigarette out of the pocket and tried to smoke but other

(patients) wants their share of ‘ikk kash’ (one puff please, a very popular

slogan or demand there, whoever lit a cigarette inside that place, even
outside but visible space, even a ‘nambardar’, have to share this ritualized

shared smoking, it reminds certain practices of communal form of using

‘hash’, even some explicitly give that reference); without realizing the

severity of the situation, that one could recognized from all those who

gather together around ‘me’, after unwilling sharing of puffs, again fall

asleep but now they (the patients) who smoked there, know that ‘I’ had

cigarettes, and, one after another came ,wake ‘me’ up and asked for to lit a

cigarette and ‘he’ himself only wants one puff only or just the ‘filter’ (i.e. the

last parts of tobacco just above the filter that rarely consumed by ‘me’ and

many other smokers because of difficulty to take a puff because of the heat

that heated the fingers) that ‘I’ could not smoked but some could, even some

got name for it, soon, in-between ‘my’ attempts to get some sleep and their

demands that wake ‘me’ up, again and again, to smoke another cigarette, all

the remaining cigarette was consumed by ‘me’ together with some other

(patients) who got one or two puffs or a ‘filter’, now a smoker’s own problem

arrived at the scene, where and how get puffs for himself, first naively asked

to the attendant who brought nan-channe and confiscated some bucks while

searched ’my’ clothes and body, at first he informed ‘me’ the bucks was

delivered to my ‘guardian, though ‘I’ explicitly asked him, when he

confiscated ‘my’ bucks with a claim that other patients will took these bucks

while ‘I’ will asleep, don’t give him (to so called guardian) the bucks, for

almost more than two days he deferred my requests for cigarette of the

brand, used to smoke; meanwhile, had learn the art of asking for one puff
please request to get some puffs even luckily sometime a cigarette too from

some generous other (patient), until ‘I’ got out of injections effectivity and

realized a bit of ‘my’ conditions a bit latter, ; although that very day or more

properly at dinner time, ‘I’ had realized the eating conditions, ‘I’ prefer rice

over ‘roti’ (bread) and the rice was only for old (in age) patients, or-and could

be distributed maximally to eight to ten patients out of , more or less,

hundred and when ‘I’ asked for rice instead of ‘roti’, ‘I’ was told that they

were already distributed, so had had a first officially distributed meal with

another disappointment that even ’I’ could not got rice, though for later

lunches and dinners there, more or less ‘I’ got rice after continuous

reminders that ‘I’ used to eat ‘rice’, even became among those privileged

few old patients who because of their teeth’s diminished strength, daily

received the rice, only privilege ‘I’ got after continuous struggle, yet

sometime, when a new attendant arrived that struggle started again, even

some other (patients)give strength to ‘my’ voice by saying that ‘ai rozana

chaul khanda aie’ ( he daily ate rice give him some); after dinner slept again

on the bench , a bit latter awoken again and told that ’dowai’ (medicine or

rather ‘treatment’ as it was written on the tray and on the register from

where each one’s name and treatment was read and delivered) had arrived,

when a page turn up with ‘my’ name and ‘treatment’ written on it, three pills

of different colors and shapes delivered to ‘me’; while standing there, in a

state of drowsiness and an urge to fall asleep again, realized that delivered

pills could be put somewhere else than of ‘my’ mouth and latter they usually
went into a flush or somewhere else than ‘my mouth’ except one day, by

chance an attendant looking at ‘me’ became suspicious that ‘I’ did not took

pills in ’my mouth’ and ‘I’ had to take pills that day in ‘my mouth’, at other

times fortunately ‘I’ tricked the system; in reality it was impossible for an

attendant to check each and every patient, he had or hadn’t taken his

‘treatment’, except, patients themselves take ‘treatment’ either only

because of assumed ‘authority’ of medical wisdom (this presumed authority

seems to be related more with wisdom of authority in general and thus

authoritarianism, rather than any ‘trust’ on its scientific claim!) or terror of

attendants watchful gaze , some used to tricked the system, or in the case

treatment is an injection rather than pills that a nurse has administered

herself on each and every prescribed body; interestingly, there the

‘treatment’ is/was also used as punishment even attendants know the

effects of certain pills and injections and whoever defy them or irate with

them or-and some time because of other reason, either they asked a nurse

to do it or some (attendents) himself administer the ‘treatment’ as

punishment, sometime because of unknown reason the ‘treatment book’ i.e.

the register where name and treatment of every patient is inscribed, was not

opened or consulted and either a nurse or an attendant distribute the

‘treatment’, the pills, to patients, perhaps they remember all the patients

and their treatment, though ‘I’ received different pills with consultation of

‘treatment book’ from without consultation, or it does not make much

difference to give ‘treatment’ according to ‘psychiatrist’s prescription’ or

‘self-prescription’ (by an attendant or a nurse), if a patient put some medical

complaint either ‘he’ is deferred to other nurse’s time or scheduled visit, or

abusively denied the validity or severity of symptom or sometime

occasionally abusively give him some ‘treatment’, in ‘practice’ mostly it is

deferred or denial of the validity or severity of symptom; after ‘treatment’ or

‘dawai’ again fall asleep, two or three time woke up because of the

uncomforting of the wooden bench, when tried to search for alternative,

found out that there are other patients who was sleeping on a table or on the

floor around’ me’, and could not found enough strength to stand up and

perform a through search inside the wards, the place where there was some

beds and some other patients was sleeping on them, and slept again there

on the bench;

If you want to reach there, where, individual subjects just become patient by

the ‘practice’ of a ‘regime’ of ‘mental health’, someway take the ‘Jail Road’ of

the city on the right side of one way, and reach the ‘institute of cardiology’

and turn left, also left side of the institute of cardiology, follow the road and

there, where, a gate as divider of boundary starts and above that there is a

mark marks the name of the ‘institute’ beneath the regularly and officially

appointed guard is sitting with his register to record the number plates of

incoming and outgoing vehchicals as well as details from the file of filed

individual just departing from in-patient status of the ‘institute’, after the
gate road goes ahead straight to another gate, in between on right side

there was newly architected and erected building perhaps for ‘emergency

treatment’, that time just finished not in use status, after that building

another one on the same side called ‘out-patient’ also there where

individual become patients, after it a ‘mosque’ (perhaps ‘minorities’ either

do not need a place to observe the rituals of their faith or they are being

supposed could not observe or look for such a place, or less plausibly it is

presumed a single space is sufficient for all Faithful, or more plausibly it

could be presumed to be hear from the administration the ‘funds’ produce

the lack !) and after it there is a wall, on the other or-and left side of the

road after the outside boundary wall comes a small grassy piece of land

perhaps waiting for another architectural marvel, after it a cage for some

birds and behind the cage a building called ‘administration block’ after it a

parking area then a check post for the guard just not touched the wall and

in the wall another gate and another guard not relatively more open like the

earlier one, here started the boundary of in-patient part of the space

occupied when for something later to become an institute, there somewhere

near the edge of mosque’s corner you may find a map of the space if it is still

there, that could give an incomplete and incorrect idea of division and names

of the space and buildings in it, e-g., when you would cross the second gate,

if permitted though practically it is easy to go inside rather come out of it

especially if you are unwilling to become a ‘patient’ there and just become

one among the others, there after the gate on the left side a building on the
map it is labeled a library, on the board outside the building it is special

space for ‘drug addicts’ and inside that building a functioning store for

medicine if still that is the case, other than a board outside that building

there is a small disinfecting apparatus if you have time and interest to see

and read what is inscribed on it then something like a date of late 19th

century and name of the city ‘Bombay’ and its producer still readable, after

it there is a small lawn some flowers of gardener’s labor and in the same plot

behind the lawn and on the other edge of plot there is another institute for

something like a facility for blood transfusion presumably autonomous entity

from the institute in which it functions, opposite this institute a building

sometime before not operating but now or rather then an operational

‘private ward’ , in front of private ward there is the building where meals are

cooked and distributed for patients of the ‘institute’, next to kitchen on the

left side of road, there is another gated-walled-guarded boundary for females

as in-patient how it is build, divided and functioned never visited that you

could if you like with due course of procedure don’t know what that is!, next

to that boundary there is a remains of a demolished building as it seemed

once, after that road just disappeared and there two building face-a-face, on

the right side of the road after the second guarded gate in front of Lawn

there are cells, cubical for solitary confinement and some taste it as

punishment to some undesirable, irenic type of patients, behind the cell

other blocks with their own name, architectural specifity and patients,

opposite and next to these blocks is another ‘block’ left to road, opposite to
that block is another where there is a special ward for emergency

treatments, and behind it the boundary wall, in between the blocks there is

a grassy plot with some trees where birds come to sit, sing and go at liberty,

opposite to road and grassy plot another block that block accommodate

barber shop, ECT facility and if not wrong something would like to function a

sort of teaching facility for whom don’t know perhaps Para-medical and

medical staff’s in-house training facility, that makes a u-shape of blocks in

between the grassy plot where also then, lately made a cage for a pair of

dears, the block opposite to emergency block is divided in two wards with

two section each, on ground floor of the block there are one-section of each

ward namely D- and Razi-ward in each ward’s ground section there are

there patients, nurses, attendants and off-course psychiatrist unofficially

called ‘dactors’ by patients and other staff though for most patient that word

‘dactor’ (a variation from doctor) have an inflated use even an attendant

could be called and nurses usually called by this name, other than patient

who stay on the ground floor patient from the first floor comes down for

regular, mostly for scheduled check-ups, though each ward has its own

schedules, and each ward have its section on the first floor though the

division remains and someway activities functioned differently for each floor

of the same ward and converge on rule of floor rather than ward, also the

proportion of patients or rather disproportion between ground floor and first

floor is very pronounced if not wrong just 1/4th of patient found place on the

ground floor though the space and capacity does not have that proportion,
also patient on the ground floor could walk outside of their ward in the

grassy plot or sit there for a while but there is another boundary of grill with

its own gate that separate ground floor from first floor, and the first floor

there you find patient living alone with nurses and attendants and I never

saw a doctor there during the forced stay I had there, behind the gate that

is mid-way between inverted stairs, and in between the inverting joint of

stairs there is a more or less eight by ten floor on roof, one side is where

one part of stair goes down after the gate other part goes up to first floor,

opposite side a small locked room never saw being used, other on the other

two side grills that let air and light pass through the place where some

patient tired sit, chat and call the attendant for some reason or wait there

arrival to inform other, and more probably go there to find a passer by to ask

for a spare cigarette or eatable, and some time fight with each other as they

on the first floor do too, among other activities, where the stair ends there is

a long corridor that have many name there, on the left side of stairs fall or

stay there a section of d-ward, next to it another covered square shape

space on the three side of it is grill within it two tables and some wooden

benches for what, don’t know, once an attendant want to train and

demonstrate how patient supposed to eat arranged these two for a dinner

and half of the patient could not find a place on it, latter he himself

discouraged patient to use it for that purpose!, regularly nurses used to

perform ‘treatment’ from delivering pills to using as a couch for injecting

something in someone’s ass, and patient used it for sleeping ( and those
who even do not find a place on the table there are benches and floor in

abundance to enjoy the sleep, and some time sitting on it and singing, joking

or chit-chatting while waiting for their share of a puff of the cigarette circling

in-between with its own codes of distribution of puffs, where the half part of

square space touch the wards wall other half leads to the corridor, going

straight where the d-wards sections ends and stairs starts, after stairs, a

small passage, more or less five feet width, goes to washing area, there the

architectural design of ‘floor on roof’ repeats just one variation here is a

washing space rather than small locked didn’t see to be used, in the washing

area after the door four more or less four by five rectangular shape two on

each side for the purpose of shitting and slash more than sufficient for more

or less hundred patients, and inside it people even do bath who feel

comfortable because of privacy or other reason, other even paint shit on the

walls there, there are/were some interesting drawings there waiting for a

Lang to recognize it interpret, theorize and use it for cure, behind these

room-with-door to shit, a more or less eight to sixteen feet space with three

taps at the height of roughly four feet used as compulsory and non-

compulsory baths, cleaning the treys, and some think it is more appropriate

to have a slash or shit there too, and a reminder once may be a wash basin,

next to passage for washing area there is another first floor section of razi

ward, just that much is still remembered!

There, then, just become patient was/is being awaken by another patient

and ordered him ‘edhar au’ (come on this side mean in the corridor), that

was a call for the ‘Ginti’ (counting), if cow expresses someway something

essential of Nuer culture to Evans-Pritchard as he describe and analysis it, he

may like to take ‘Ginti’ for this ‘institution’, here, in the corridor, every

patient have to sit in a queue being counted down by an attendant again and

again until and unless ‘he’ is being satisfied with the number he expected

and patients sitting there correspond to it, otherwise a state of emergency

have to be announced and all the available means will be employed to

check the discrepancy and-or if it still prevail then another procedure is

going to be employed, like call an other attendant to tally the figure,

correlates the file and patient to see who is missing, and if there is still a

discrepancy then report the runway patient in a certain book and face the

consequence, so on, and from that cage like space someone’s escape is

always an act of real determination to go away by anyway, and usually the

escaped individual brought back not because they lack determination but

they rarely have a place to find an outside from their reach or-and they

usually go back to the place from where previously sent there, and mostly

once a patient means always a patient for any reason it become possible to

activate the procedure again and again, most of the patients are regular

visitor of the ‘institution’, and kinds of reason are so numerous and strange it

seems anyone could be a patient and there they have no way to determine

the difference between white and black, e.g. when ‘he’ asked again on his
first check up ‘why he is there’ the psychiatrist gave the reason ‘your family

said you act angrily and fight with them’ ‘he’ gave ‘his’ version of story, and

asked ‘why not they listen to him at the time of admission and why not he is

going to have access to his books and means to write something because he

is working on a small piece of work of his interest, while they are not willing

to let him go and have their on procedure to follow on which they pretend to

have more trust’ the psychiatrist needs some time to think and consult the

‘guardians’ or-and ‘family’, ‘he’ continue in his stubborn ways and asking

again and again even dare to ask what they actually think in between time

according to their professional assessment what is the diagnoses that make

the suffering of this ‘institution’ a must be, rarely find an answer, these two

minutes session usually terminated or the request is deferred, when ‘he’

asked again to psychiatrist after a month, that was turn up to be the last

session, ‘he’ got the response they are not yet sure of diagnosis, the

psychiatrist said ‘one month is not sufficient time’, and they still have to

think ‘he’ could be allowed the books and writing stuff, so on; there, they

counted more than six time a day every day, each attendant at least twice

and there are three shifts each day, when ‘he’ took charge and before

leaving the charge and in between whenever he desire everyone must be sit

in the queue without delay or face the attendant, and to face an attendant is

the least desirable thing any patient wanted still some have to face him

anyway, it seems most of the time the way attendant act themselves or

persuade, delegate others to act , some sort of state of terror is desirable,

even some time they express as it has curative value, so rarely there is a

counting act when someone someway does not face an attendant, so ‘he’

went there without knowing that he is going to face all this at least a month

and ordered to sit in a queue, even one can’t sit on a nearby bench though

latter ‘he’ got that exception because of some problem in his ass he feel pain

whereas trying to sit on the floor, that too some time become intolerable

because of attendant’s mood swings, so sitting there in a state of

drowsiness, and attendant is counting again and again to confirm the

number until his satisfaction, patients are anxiously waiting to be counted

and either go to bed again and wait desperately for the breakfast, or

meanwhile find someone smoking there to have an early puff, after counting

attendant pick some patient of his choice to brought and distribute the

breakfast, attendant with his hand picked patients, usually every attendants

have his own team to do the chorus, and these patients in return received

some extra food stuff and rarely some cigarettes if confiscated from another

patient, this ‘extra’ food always already seems problematic as it convey that

the food provided to each patient is not sufficient and that ‘extra’ or little bit

more is an incentive to do the act, because when patient was/is employed

for other activities neither they are compensated with food, if it is for the

recovery of the energy consumed, nor usually get any other compensation,

expect where they used to work there they can have more walking space

outside the cage-like-first-floor but inside the arbitrary boundaries of block,

so the break fast is/was arrived and before its arrival some patient comes
with mugs and most of the patient trying to catch one and sit in queue again

if do not want to wait for an other patient to finish his break first and

handover the mug to him, and receive two ‘toast’ and tea in the mug, so

after break fast the patients who distributes have to eat their break fast and

latter collect the mugs and other kitchen wear clean in the washing space

and cry for the attendant to take it down, after finishing his breakfast ‘he’

start a search for a bed and find one empty in a corner, it might be empty

because there for the fan it is hard to demonstrate its presence, and lay

and slept again, soon some one awaken him and ask to come in the corridor,

now what, ‘he’ has to change the clothes, what some attendant calls ‘vardi’

(uniform), ‘he’ refused without recognizing the consequence, they smell in

the hands of attendant, ‘he’ had got quick slap on the face and ‘he’ is laying

on the ground, again being asked, again ‘he’ refused with the reason of non

acceptance, again received the slap and he is/was on the floor, while ‘he’

is/was trying to stand another patient jump on him and he is again on the

floor, an usual scene there , with this encounter of reason and slap he had to

wore the cloths, and later his ass face the consequence as ‘he’ think, within

a day some irritating activity ‘he’ felt at his ass and there was an infection

that took more time to heal and left some permanent black marks on the ass

than the course of treatment in the ‘institution’, latter one day when he

remind the attendant because of these filthy clothes ‘he’ got an infection ‘he’

said with self –confidence, ‘doctor’s are here to cure’, when he argue why he

have to become sick first to get doctor’s treatment’ he repeat with an ironic
smile last reply, and when asked the doctor ‘he’ really had a remedy some

anti-biotic without paying any attention to change the clothes that may be

the cause of infection, so he have to wore that clothes more or less three

week with growing infection on his ass and its’ multiple irritations; a bit latter

came a nurse with the attendant to treat the patients every patient have to

assemble in the square space at the edge of corridor where two tables and

benches are present , even if some patient do not have any treatment for a

schedule visit of a nurse as some realized after some time even then some

time they are forced to go there because attendant wanted or face the

attendant , there no patient can sit on the same bench where the nurses sits

because they were the only one other than patient themselves who smells

the stink of their clothes and afraid of being infected by some dieses, there

the nurse(s) have to deliver the treatment and newcomer like ‘him’ have to

receive a small plastic boatel to fill with their ‘urine’ and hand over to

another patient who collect it and deliver it to a destined place, and if that

moment some could not produce the ‘urine’ he must face the attendant, also

a blood sample, so attendant’s third visit with a third act is completed with

its usual funfair and ‘he’ could again have some time to sleep, while he is

sleeping someone came with his equipment and chose his patient of choice

and all of them try to clean the first floor for a day, if it was a day for check

up ‘he’ could not sleep he have to go down in a queue with a counting before

and after to have a privilege of two minute session for that have to sit there

in the ward under the watchful gaze of an appointed patients and attendant
himself more than an hour, and also if it is a day for shave then too he could

not sleep he have to go for a compulsory shave and head shave if it is the

first visit to barber shop with the now obvious ritual of a counting for going

down and a counting after coming up, he could not sleep if it is a day for a

compulsory bath and compulsory ‘under shave’ (even every patient have to

pass through a compulsory removal of once pubic hair all together all naked

sitting on a floor in a queue to experience a stick with a cloth on the cloth

some hair removing solution, someone dip the stick in the solution and

move around every patients dick, and ‘they’ have to sit there for a while for

the solution to take effect later to find a place in the wash room for a bath,

someone by chance can escape if hide beneath the bed and attendant and

helping patient do not care to look there, more or less same procedure used

for the compulsory bath except , patients sit in a queue called in a set of

four, because there are three tapes to take bath!, take off the clothes go to

washing area wait there for the previous four to free a tape and have a bath

come back wore the same cloth again and sit in the queue for almost

compulsory oiling the hair if there are any hair after the ritual head shave),

theses three scheduled variation in a week are deployed there as it seems

week is/was planed , though razi-wards patient have there own schedule as

some patient from that ward told especially with regard to ‘check up’), ‘he’

could be awaken for a ‘mulakat’ ( a sort of ‘meeting, encounter or

interview’), an other interesting activity like ‘giniti’, supposedly the very

‘family’ members who admit someone there come to visit a ‘patient’ and
they could brought some eatables and smoking stuff depending upon the

visitor, in practice virtually any time some visitor can come and ask for a

‘mulakat’ and usually patients desired this activity it give them an

opportunity to taste something other than officially provided eatables, get

some cigarettes or money to buy some cigarettes at inflated price, have a

chance to go out of that cage like space for the time of ‘mulakat’ and to

know their (admitter’s) desire when they are willing to take them back, so

on, as that happened more or less same time after two days though then

‘he’ came out of the efectivity of ‘injection’ and was not sleeping there, and

there then ‘he’ talked and asked during ‘mulakat’ for the reason of the

admission, and they (admitters) had to communicate the virtually chronic

‘unemployed’ the other presumed privileges inside or outside ‘they’ are

going to take back, without having any sufficient reason to give for the

admission, a bore encounter for ‘him’, though the attendant on duty who

over hear the dialogue thought ‘he’ presented ‘his’ case rightly even willing

to gave him a cigarette out of what, though ‘he’ did not get the cigarette,

latter ‘he’ refused to participate in any such encounter as ‘he’ denied

another visitor the ‘mulakat’ ‘he’ (visitor) asked for, so that very day ‘he’ was

awaken again for a launch some patients brought the food and after

attendant’s counting ritual food is/was distributed, food too seems to have a

weekly schedule and usually on a particular day of week a particular

vegetable or dal is being cooked, and ‘he’ realized latter at least there are

three days when there is something ‘he’ never like to eat so just rice or a bit
of gravy if the distributing patient and attendant is willing, other wise eat the

rice at your choice, as one attendant used to remind on such occasion ‘athea

teri bhabhie nahi bhathi’ (here you don’t have your mother to serve you)

or-and other aphorism or scrams of his choice with a smile on lips, after the

launch ‘he’ slept again until someone call again for another counting,

another attendant arrived and have to count the patient, after counting

again sleep and again someone awaken him later, for what, tea time, ‘he’

was not interested let be sleep, this is only act patient do by themselves

from bringing and distributing the tea to cleaning and sending down the

kitchen wear, more or less successful, isn’t strange no big problem in a

month took place while patients do it by themselves!, so again being

awaken for another treatment have to go to square space and receive his

‘medicine’ and think where to put them other then mouth and did the bit,

there he recognize the attendant and remind him of cigarettes that he

promised to manage for him and he (attendant) again deferred until ‘he’

(just become patient) almost lost any interest to repeat that again and

request being deferred again, after some days other demands too ‘he’ put

forward to more then one attendant like soap, tooth brush, ball point and

note book, even a chapel (a kind of sandal) when ‘his’ chapal he wore

become unusable but no one interested in such minor affairs they always

have to do some other more important stuff to do, as when after three days

without a chapal, and even before when chapal was close to lost the

threshold of usability, he asked the psychiatrist he said it is not a serious

thing one can live without it, so again sleep yet the injection’s effect let him

sleep without much ado, so again being awaken for the dinner sitting in a

queue, and after counting, distributer distributes eatables, after that again

‘he’ went to sleep, being awaken again for another ‘treatment’ session that

square space full of patient want to sleep have to sit there in that square

space full of stink , just become a lack in space because of more or less

hundred patient sitting there, and going to receive some other sedatives

perhaps, even there some already sleeping being awaken by an

attendant’s punch or patent’s call to take the medicine and go to bed and

sleep there, after that every patient have to go to some place to sleep

some on bed some on the table, some on the benches and other on the floor,

until then, when another attendant arrive and bark again wake up and sit in

queue I have to count, here neither have much space nor time nor interested

to exploit your patience with a narrative of a month in a institute, just in

passing it could be added those rare moments when after a struggle with the

patients and attendants ‘he’ could enjoy a scene behind the grill what he

called look like a landscape yet to be painted, about those birds comes at

there will fly around sits there sings and pass there time and go away, may

be come again for another day either ‘he’ will or will not be there, so how

these fragments weaving together to net a narrative seems to have any

coherence or not, pointed towards how many violation of human right, it is

up to you read that with as much rigor as you want to useix, lying there on

the bench while watching birds games and hearing their songs on the tree
outside in the plot at the same time inside block sometime ‘he’ think may

be Basaglia, like others, rightly demonstrated another time and another

place all the rigor of assessment regime and curative value of these kind of

institution, what else could be added when already there are so many

con-/text like this daily happen and other asked is there anything serious in

it!, may be someone méconnaisse this description as Kafkaesque Trail’s

opening scene, perhaps it seems to resemble more with Mistryesque scene

of ‘family planning’ in ‘A Fine balance’!

Here are some words creating poems there you may find little more joy, who

knows, how they relate with this narrative there is no justification other than

they are here putting a claim on the critical reader to see is there any

relation in it or-and any monologocentrism is operative in it called itself some

narrative fragment: aporias of who!

XXXII.

There was a Door to which I found no Key:

There was a Veil past which I could not see:

Some little Talk awhile of ME and THEE

There seemed--and then no more of THEE and ME.

LXXVIII.
What! out of senseless Nothing to provoke

A conscious Something to resent the yoke

Of unpermitted Pleasure, under pain

Of Everlasting Penalties, if broke!

LXXIII.

Ah, Love! could thou and I with Fate conspire

To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire,

Would not we shatter it to bits--and then

Re-mould it nearer to the Heart's Desire!

(Khayyam)

LA BEAUTE

Je suis belle, ô mortels! comme un rêve de pierre,

Et mon sein, où chacun s'est meurtri tour à tour,

Est fait pour inspirer au poète un amour

Eternel et muet ainsi que la matière.

Je trône dans l'azur comme un sphinx incompris;

J'unis un cœur de neige à la blancheur des cygnes;

Je hais le mouvement qui déplace les lignes,

Et jamais je ne pleure et jamais je ne ris.

‘Ainsi donc la question… ;’

Cet enfant

il n’est pas là,

il n’est qu’un angle,

un angle à venir,

et il n’y a pas d’angle….

or ce monde du père-mère est justement ce qui doit s’en aller,

c’est ce monde dédoublé-doublé,

en état de désunion constante,

en volonté d’unification constante aussi….

autour duquel tourne tout le système de ce monde

malignement soutenu par la plus sombre organisation.

(Artaud)

LA BEAUTE (…)
Les poètes, devant mes grandes attitudes.

Que j'ai l'air d'emprunter aux plus fiers monuments,

Consumeront leurs jours en d'austères études;

Car j'ai, pour fasciner ces dociles amants,

De purs miroirs qui font toutes choses plus belles:

Mes yeux, mes larges yeux aux clartés éternelles!

(Baudelaire, Les Fleurs du Mal)

Beauty

I am as lovely as a dream in stone,

And this my heart where each finds death in turn,

Inspires the poet with a love as lone

As clay eternal and as taciturn.

Swan white of heart, a sphinx no mortal knows,

My throne is in the heaven’s azure deep;

I hate all movements that disturb my pose,

I smile not ever, neither do I weep.

This child

he is not there,

he is but an angle,

an angle to come,

and there is no angle….

and yet it is precisely this world, of father-mother which must go away,

it is this world, spilt in two-doubled,

in a state of constant disunion, also willing a constant unification….

around which turns the entire system of this world

maliciously sustained by somber organization.

(Artaud, 1983)

Beauty (…)

Before my monumental attitudes,

That breath a soul into the plastic arts,

My poets pray in austere studious mood,

For I, to told enchantment round their hearts,

Have pools of light where beauty flames & dies,

The placid mirrors of my luminous eyes.

(Baudelaire, Les Fleurs du Mal)

Beware of…

hi u

wanna educate me

all the days

all the nights

here-there-where-everywhere

having no break

for play

for wo da

(Likhat Silani, unpubliswhed)

Comings and goings

coming out of matter

all eternity all alone

such a crap

where is commode

put this in it

just a flush

nothing there

nothing more

no trace behind

just that

nothing much

who knows

perhaps u

(Likhat Sialani, unpublished)

 Appendix A

Certain details of the original e-mail had (a sort of SOS) been omitted this

email was sent within a week of this incident to friends, family members, and

some ‘consumer rights’ organizations, only a friends’ consolatory reply

received before ‘he’ was again there where as you read in the narrative

above here, the text of the email without email headers is here …

To whomever it may concern

Sub: My body and Rights are being violated and abused

Dear,

Day before yesterday, while I was working on a table, reading and taking

notes for a research problématique: some persons, all of a sudden, appeared

and ordered me to go with them, an employee’s official card hanged at the

pocket of one of them (just caught sight of logo no farther details) and their

authoritarian manners remind me an “Institute of Mental Health”, because I

know a bit how and what was the taste of it’s hospitality before! I asked

them, why you come now, why not sit and talk why ever I ought to go with

you, that seems to be more than enough for them, I think they minded that

possibly mind –boggling gesture; and begins to use force, two of them
caught my hands, pulled me up from the chair, turned my arms round and

later backwards, I felt impulsive waves of strains and pains in my body

especially joints of my shoulders, forearms and at the back; for a while, I

tried to resist but it seems to me, there was no getting away from their grip

and force, at the same time, I was asking, even if they want to bring me back

in that “institution”, whatever reason there was/is (if any) that authorize this

act, let my body free, and I could go with them; even if neither I want it, nor

feel any need of it, also have to do some work, so don’t interested to waste

my time!

However, neither they had been interested to listen these idiocies of a

lunatic fringe, nor let those arms and a body free, even if, to go there, just

otherwise then the way they was acting, probably they thought the only

appropriate way to do such act was the way they was doing; they intensified

the pressure on the arms and dragged the body to another place , given

without giving there efforts over to idiot’s yapping -- like I could go with you

if my body could be freed sandals could be again on my feet, as some dare

to ask for such stupid things!--instead of that they demanded a rope, without

more ado got it too, and tied the hands behind the back of the body, dragged

the body out of a house in bare feet, hand-coughed at the back and forced

the body into a vehicle they called ambulance: there, everybody at its place,

inside the ambulance, feel relaxed and chatting with a sense of

accomplishment visible on the face of smiling ones; again and again, on the

way to destined place, irksome irks by reminding, there is an untimely thirst

of water, wherever that seems available, if they would like to provide it, that

untimely need had to be defer with excuses of one kind or other; at last

ambulance reached there, renowned “Institute of Mental Health”, in front of

so called out-patient block, the body had been taken out of the ambulance

and brought in, inside the place of Out-Patient!

In short, Someway it was being happened to escape from a place called Out-

Patient, and now in a social-psychological state of terror—one sign of it is

that, all the time, all the possible ways to come in a place, where I came

back are being locked-- and shock, thinking that what could be done in such

a situation!

Therefore, I would like to know, you or the organization-- at least those who

are working for the Rights, in general, or for the Consumer, in particular—

have any-way-out for such impasses! I don’t know, still sharing these words

with you; though don’t have the ability to do it in a proper way! May be, out

there, somewhere, some think it valuable; at least to read it and think over

it, there may be a way –out!

Just a victim!

Who’s body

and rights

are being

violated
and

abused

(Signature omitted)

P.S.: Presently, neither I have Internet access nor bucks, energy and strength

to come to a cyber-café, and checks emails: Only way seems plausible, if any

want and think of it, to contact me is by a way of phoning at: (omitted) or-

and reaching at (omitted); if and only if, the phone is working or-and

someway a letter or a person may reached there, and it could be received by

me! Sorry for bothering your patience for such yaps, don’t mind, if it reached

you unwanted, just do your bit, bits- it- away- with- recycle-bin!

Below/beneath is some stanzas taken from some poems of Baudelaire, P.

Charles (1857) Fleurs du Mal. (tr.) F. P. Sturm

The temptation

“The harmony is far too great,

That governs all her body fair,

For Impotence to analyze

And say which note is sweetest there.

The Owls

From their still attitude the wise

Will learn with terror to despise

All tumult, movement, and unrest.

Correspondences

In Nature’s temple living pillars rise,

And Words are murmured none have understood,

And man must wonder through a tangled wood

Of symbols watching him with friendly eyes.

As long-drawn echoes heard far-off and dim

Mingle to one deep sound and fade away:

Vast as the night and brilliant as the day,

Color and sound and perfume speak to him.

Notes

For a reader of Derrida ( 2005), it may ‘[e]cho thus lets be heard by whoever

wants to hear it, whoever might love hearing it, something, other than what

seems to be saying’ from the ‘Preface: Veni’ of two lectures later became a

book with the title ‘rogues: two essays on reason’, though that line occurred

without, or rather before, reading the above cited text…

This epigraph was cited as a part of a footnote in Deleuze & Guattari (2000)

Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and schizophrenia, itself a citation from Foucault

(1964), La Folie, l’absence d’oeuvre…

This epigraph appears as an epigraph in Pandey’s ‘ The Prose of Otherness’,

itself a citation from Manto’s (1981) Toba Tek Singh. Interestingly the author

of ‘Afsana’ (Short story) like the protagonist of the Afsana had been admitted

as an ‘lunatic’ or ‘patient’ –even in contemporary vocabulary used in the

‘institution’ no more ‘asylum’ ( ‘I’-see note v for pronouns use-am not sure

the ‘institution’ ever officially named as an ‘asylum’ though some of the steal

trays still patients used for eating in the institute have a monogram

engraved in them somewhat like ‘G M H 1993’ may be an abbreviation of

‘General Mental Hospital’, and official discourse including one of the

psychiatrist I had had to meet there usually emphasis on its being an

‘institute’ as it seems to be renamed lately, what was the name when the
author of the ‘Afsana’ lived there in mid twenties centaury or rather when it

was coming out as a ‘colonial’ erection in late nineteen centaury and

itinerary of its naming and re-naming again and again its contingent

operative ‘mental health’ regime of each time, let’s leave this for

researchers to search it as recently there is some interest in another

contemporaries ‘colonial’ erection of a ‘school of art’ in the same city may

be one night some one like to write a thesis on this ‘institution’ too,

something like ‘Mental health regime: from colonial time to now’, although

unofficially almost everyone except some psychiatrist perhaps called it

‘pagal khana’ and ‘patients’ as ‘pagal’ including most of the patient’s

themselves, one ‘Punjabi-English Dictionary’ (1983) have only the meaning

of the word ‘pagal’ i.e. ‘[m]ad; insane; foolish;’ there is no entry of ‘pagal

khana’ however there is an entry of ‘khana’ that publish it’s meaning i.e. ‘[a]

house; a receptacle, a drawer; a compartment, a partition, especially in a

box; a square in chess or draught, divisions or square in other games; a

column of a tabular statement’, so it could be said quickly it means

something like mad house or house for ‘insane’, ‘foolish’ or-and ‘mad’, other

than a house, a compartment, a partition or even a receptacle seems to

make sense with the translation of the word ‘pagal’ that mean they could be

considered as a substitute for the word ‘a house’ or – and augment and

gloss over the complexities of translating that compound in another

language and unfortunately I have neither a lexicographer’s competence

nor enough time to look this problematic of translating the compound word
in detail here (!), usually some consider it a synonym for ‘mental hospital’,

while altogether leaving aside the problematic of this dictionary itself, ‘first

published in 1895 under the aegis of the Education Department with the

approval of the Punjab Text Book Committee of that time’ and had to take

into account what ‘the then Lieutenant-Governor of the Punjab, was inclined

to think that in the new book … should be adequately treated’ and later a

publishers publish it in 1983, there where here ‘Foreword of Reprint [publish

that ]… the present dictionary still remains the best available … the

Dictionary [‘must also be made’!] suitable for use in this country’, what these

long citations said or remains many things unsaid like the ‘governmentality’

from ‘colonial’ to ‘dictatorial’ time, or the translation of the Afsana translate

it as ‘asylum’ and ‘patients’ as ‘lunatic’ for some time (why? don’t know)

there, where, here in the ‘institution’ where the narrator within these

fragments forcefully made a ‘patient’, so let’s return to the citation as an

epigraph, the irony of this citation is not only the themes of ‘partition’ and

‘exchange’ as a historical event wherever that could be breached in, even to

lunatic’s asylums and prisons, rather later when another ‘partition’ or rather

‘independence’ happened after another ‘civil war’ many exchanges even of

citizen’s itself still have to take place, if ever that is going to take place(!),

those (before, during and after ‘civil war’ of independence ) ‘who considered

themselves citizen’s of Pakistan’ whose ‘majority’ of citizenry whiter away

and another citizenship has been arrive at its place, there, where, they still

lived alongside their children, who born in other circumstances, in ‘refugee-

like camps’, and ‘called stranded Pakistanis since 1971’, Refugee

International (2006) reported that they are ‘Citizens of Nowhere: The

Stateless Biharis of Bangladesh’, and ‘[n]ither [ state who’s reminder of

citizenry they ‘considered themselves’ they are, there, where another

citizenship of another state arrive after a withering away effect and they did

not go for it,] country offered citizenship or aid’; again ‘I’ am not going into

details here, the problematic of that particular state with its multiple

dimensions like the name of ‘minority’ the claimed cause of the birth of a

nation where later in its hi-s-tory neither minorities nor majorities feel

satisfied from the state, a ‘majority’ ‘secede[d]’ and became another state

where that reminder of citizenry is still reminding one aspect of the problem

namely chronic ‘military dictatorships’ and ‘dictatorial regime’s’ aversion to

let the citizen’s have a voice and vote to determine the state’s affairs,

another aspect of it is, not only relatively well constituted already

established minorities, considered in terms of ethnicity or religion, faces

problems, the state and also societies constituted new minorities on the

name of religion or other names like above example some citizen considered

themselves citizen of a state and that state recognized that as a real claim

awhile and then what happened they become ‘citizens of nowhere’, that

state constituted a new minority in second instances of its state formation,

after second partition, out of it’s religious majority by defining a certain

sense of a religious faith mean non-faith and that implies they no more

belong to the religious faith to whom that newly formed minority think it still
belongs faithfully(!), so then onward they becomes minority of a religion at

the same time outside of it and inside of it, and story goes on let’s return to

narrative of who let’s see that here, where, there… in the ‘institute’, one day

a fellow patient found out that ‘I’ am an ‘atheist’, he became interested in

‘me’, and soon ‘we’ develop a rapport, of more than just a communal

smoking, and start discussing a lot of matters from Nietzsche’s ‘God is dead’

to magic and science, even ‘he’ think ‘he’ too becomes an ‘ateat’ (initially, ‘I’

méconnaisse it as ‘atit’ a bit latter through the context of his talk ‘I’

recognized that perhaps ‘he’ pronounced ‘atheist’ this way!) and advised me

don’t tell other’s that ‘you are an atheist’ because it is dangerous, and to

some extent he was right, being a minority means to expect discrimination

or censor one-self in public, in their society being an ‘atheist’ considered

more un-expectable than a Hindu, Sikh or Christian even from a ‘Mirzai’ the

newly born minority just mentioned above, and during those chit-chat ‘I’

come to know that he even did not know ‘Bangladesh’ once part of his state,

and many ‘stranded Pakistanis’ are still living there in ‘refugee-like camps’,

may be because of his age, he seems to be born in eighties!

This epigraph cited from Derrida’s (2005) Rogues: two essays on reason,

though in this epigraph here Derrida is explicitly discussing states only, and

in particular ‘rogue state’ or ‘etate vouys’, but as the text bring in the debate

of ‘rogue’ and ‘vouys’ as a person’, ‘individual’ and to some extent ‘rogue’ or

‘vouys’ organization (or institution) in general, as a specific formation of

these words ‘rogue’ or ‘vouys’ historically in France and their theoretical link
to democracy with regard to Greece, and their contemporary deployment in

inter-state relations, and drawing from it so many consequences and

conclusions or rather indicating in passing so many aporias and things

related to ‘democracy’, ‘peace’ and ‘human rights’ so on…

Here, where, there, you are reading, or-and writing at once, this case both in

the medical and legal sense, keep in sight, that it (‘the case’) was narrated in

a ‘manner’ and ‘style’, ‘where, there, here’ an ‘I’, ‘me’ and other subject

positions that narrates the narrator as a ‘character-actor’ of the narrative

and ‘it’, ‘he’ and other positions may play a play ‘at once’ or ‘by turn’,

alternatively, also the narrative departed from the ‘traditional’ style and

manner of narrating, making, presenting a case both in the medical and legal

sense; so it demands a bit ‘care’ to read the heterogeneous senses, even

non-senses, produced here!

Just an allusion to a late debate between Lacan-Derrida about a letter would

either arrived or not arrived to its destination, for details see Muller &

Richardson (1988) The purloined poe...

Here and elsewhere the ‘Punjabi’ words and phrases being translated to
convey at least one sense they usually have in the Punjabi, the ‘lingua
franca’ there, and mostly follow the Punjabi-English dictionary,
May be someone like to write another thesis like ‘Mental health regime and

its relation with socio-political struggles: from colonial time to now’…

In passing it could be mentioned the (anti-)psychiatrist regime of ‘Mental

Health’ and its normative conditions could found so many exception here of

their functioning, for example an overview of one contemporary debate

 within WHO’s framework could be read in ‘The Resource Book on Mental

Health, Human Rights and Legislation’ and other documents available at the

website or otherwise, for deconstruction of ‘Human Rights’ and related

themes Derrida’s many texts could be cited, one is mentioned in the

narrative fragment ‘Rogues: two essays on reason’, for the

genealogical/archeological working out of the problematic Foucault’s

‘Madness and Civilization: A history of insanity in the age of reason’, for a

critique of the notion of ‘mental illness’ Szasz’s ‘The Myth of Mental Illness’,

for its relation with the ‘family’ ‘institution’ and its critique, works of R. D.

Lang, D. Cooper, A. Esterson, and so many other’s works, so on, how these

are related with this text and in this specific context, there are some places

where they frame these fragments, for more rigorous works that could

describe and analysis it better latter perhaps!

Selected Bibliography

Artaud, A. (1967). ‘Ainsi donc la question…’.Tel Quel, 30. Cited in G. Deleuze

and F. Guattari. (1984). Anti-oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia.

London :The Athlone Press. P.122

Baudelaire, C. (2004). Les Fleurs du Mal. EBook #6099. The Project

Gutenberg Literary Archive, [WWW document]
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/6099 (accessed 09 September 2007)

Cooper, D. (1970).Psychiatry and Anti-psychiatry. London: Paladin

Derrida, J. (2005). Rouges: two essays on Reason. Trans. Pascale-Anne Brault

and Michael Nass. California: Stanford University Press

Foucault, M. (1964). La Folie, l’absence d’œuvre. Cited in G. Deleuze and F.

Guattari. (1984). Anti-oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. London:The

Athlone Press.

Foucault, M. (1977). Discipline and Punishment: The Birth of Prison. London:

Penguin Books

Foucault, M. (1977). Madness and Civilization: A history of insanity in the age

of reason. London: Tavistock (abridged version of original French text).

Kafka, F. (2005). Trail. EBook #7849. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive,

[WWW document] http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/7849 (accessed 09 September

2007)

Khayyam, O. (1995). Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.Trans. Edward Fitzgerald.

EBook #22535. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive, [WWW document]

http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/246 (accessed 09 September 2007)

Laing, R. D. & Esterson, A. (1964). Sanity, madness and the family. London:

Tavistock Publications
Lynch M.& Cook, T. (2006). Citizen of Nowhere: The Stateless Biharis of

Bangladesh. Washington: Refugees International. [WWW document]

http://www.refintl.org/content/publication/detail/7828/ (accessed 09 September

2007)

Mistry, R. (1995). A Fine Balance. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart

Muller, J . & Richardson, W. (1988). (eds). The purloined Poe: Lacan, Derrida,

and Psychoanalytical reading. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press

Pandey, G. (1994). Prose of Otherness. In D. Arnold and D. Hardiman (eds.).

Subaltern Studies VIII: Essays in Honour of Ranajit Guha. Delhi: Oxford

University Press

Szasz,T. S. (1961) The myth of metal illness. New York: Hoeber-Harper

The Vanguard Punjabi-English Dictionary. (1983). Lahore: Vanguard Books

WHO (2005). The Resource Book on Mental Health, Human Rights and

Legislation. Geneva, World Health Organization. [WWW document]

http://www.who.int/mental_health/policy/legislation/policy/en/index.html

(accessed 09 September 2007)

Some related websites:

The Antipsychiatry Coalition

http://www.antipsychiatry.org/

Ethical Principal of Psychiatrist Practice

http://www.wpanet.org/home.html

IAAPA - International Association Against Psychiatric Assault

http://www.iaapa.ch/

OHCHR - Committee against Torture

http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu2/6/cat/index.html

The Society for Laingian Studies

http://laingsociety.org/

The Thomas S. Szasz Cybercenter for Liberty and Responsibility

http://www.szasz.com/

The Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust

http://www.tavi-port.org/
i
For a reader of Derrida ( 2005), it may ‘[e]cho thus lets be heard by whoever

wants to hear it, whoever might love hearing it, something, other than what

seems to be saying’ from the ‘Preface: Veni’ of two lectures later became a book

with the title ‘rogues: two essays on reason’, though that line occurred without, or

rather before, reading the above cited text…

ii
This epigraph was cited as a part of a footnote in Deleuze & Guattari (2000)

Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and schizophrenia, itself a citation from Foucault (1964),

La Folie, l’absence d’oeuvre…

iii
This epigraph appears as an epigraph in Pandey’s ‘ The Prose of Otherness’,

itself a citation from Manto’s (1981) Toba Tek Singh. Interestingly the author of

‘Afsana’ (Short story) like the protagonist of the Afsana had been admitted as an

‘lunatic’ or ‘patient’ –even in contemporary vocabulary used in the ‘institution’ no

more ‘asylum’ ( ‘I’-see note v for pronouns use-am not sure the ‘institution’ ever

officially named as an ‘asylum’ though some of the steal trays still patients used

for eating in the institute have a monogram engraved in them somewhat like ‘G M

H 1993’ may be an abbreviation of ‘General Mental Hospital’, and official

discourse including one of the psychiatrist I had had to meet there usually

emphasis on its being an ‘institute’ as it seems to be renamed lately, what was

the name when the author of the ‘Afsana’ lived there in mid twenties centaury or

rather when it was coming out as a ‘colonial’ erection in late nineteen centaury

and itinerary of its naming and re-naming again and again its contingent

operative ‘mental health’ regime of each time, let’s leave this for researchers to

search it as recently there is some interest in another contemporaries ‘colonial’

erection of a ‘school of art’ in the same city may be one night some one like to
write a thesis on this ‘institution’ too, something like ‘Mental health regime: from

colonial time to now’, although unofficially almost everyone except some

psychiatrist perhaps called it ‘pagal khana’ and ‘patients’ as ‘pagal’ including

most of the patient’s themselves, one ‘Punjabi-English Dictionary’ (1983) have

only the meaning of the word ‘pagal’ i.e. ‘[m]ad; insane; foolish;’ there is no entry

of ‘pagal khana’ however there is an entry of ‘khana’ that publish it’s meaning i.e.

‘[a] house; a receptacle, a drawer; a compartment, a partition, especially in a

box; a square in chess or draught, divisions or square in other games; a column of

a tabular statement’, so it could be said quickly it means something like mad

house or house for ‘insane’, ‘foolish’ or-and ‘mad’, other than a house, a

compartment, a partition or even a receptacle seems to make sense with the

translation of the word ‘pagal’ that mean they could be considered as a substitute

for the word ‘a house’ or – and augment and gloss over the complexities of

translating that compound in another language and unfortunately I have neither a

lexicographer’s competence nor enough time to look this problematic of

translating the compound word in detail here (!), usually some consider it a

synonym for ‘mental hospital’, while altogether leaving aside the problematic of

this dictionary itself, ‘first published in 1895 under the aegis of the Education

Department with the approval of the Punjab Text Book Committee of that time’

and had to take into account what ‘the then Lieutenant-Governor of the Punjab,

was inclined to think that in the new book … should be adequately treated’ and

later a publishers publish it in 1983, there where here ‘Foreword of Reprint

[publish that ]… the present dictionary still remains the best available … the

Dictionary [‘must also be made’!] suitable for use in this country’, what these long
citations said or remains many things unsaid like the ‘governmentality’ from

‘colonial’ to ‘dictatorial’ time, or the translation of the Afsana translate it as

‘asylum’ and ‘patients’ as ‘lunatic’ for some time (why? don’t know) there,

where, here in the ‘institution’ where the narrator within these fragments

forcefully made a ‘patient’, so let’s return to the citation as an epigraph, the irony

of this citation is not only the themes of ‘partition’ and ‘exchange’ as a historical

event wherever that could be breached in, even to lunatic’s asylums and prisons,

rather later when another ‘partition’ or rather ‘independence’ happened after

another ‘civil war’ many exchanges even of citizen’s itself still have to take place,

if ever that is going to take place(!), those (before, during and after ‘civil war’ of

independence ) ‘who considered themselves citizen’s of Pakistan’ whose

‘majority’ of citizenry whiter away and another citizenship has been arrive at its

place, there, where, they still lived alongside their children, who born in other

circumstances, in ‘refugee-like camps’, and ‘called stranded Pakistanis since

1971’, Refugee International (2006) reported that they are ‘Citizens of Nowhere:

The Stateless Biharis of Bangladesh’, and ‘[n]ither [ state who’s reminder of

citizenry they ‘considered themselves’ they are, there, where another citizenship

of another state arrive after a withering away effect and they did not go for it,]

country offered citizenship or aid’; again ‘I’ am not going into details here, the

problematic of that particular state with its multiple dimensions like the name of

‘minority’ the claimed cause of the birth of a nation where later in its hi-s-tory

neither minorities nor majorities feel satisfied from the state, a ‘majority’

‘secede[d]’ and became another state where that reminder of citizenry is still

reminding one aspect of the problem namely chronic ‘military dictatorships’ and
‘dictatorial regime’s’ aversion to let the citizen’s have a voice and vote to

determine the state’s affairs, another aspect of it is, not only relatively well

constituted already established minorities, considered in terms of ethnicity or

religion, faces problems, the state and also societies constituted new minorities

on the name of religion or other names like above example some citizen

considered themselves citizen of a state and that state recognized that as a real

claim awhile and then what happened they become ‘citizens of nowhere’, that

state constituted a new minority in second instances of its state formation, after

second partition, out of it’s religious majority by defining a certain sense of a

religious faith mean non-faith and that implies they no more belong to the

religious faith to whom that newly formed minority think it still belongs

faithfully(!), so then onward they becomes minority of a religion at the same time

outside of it and inside of it, and story goes on let’s return to narrative of who let’s

see that here, where, there… in the ‘institute’, one day a fellow patient found out

that ‘I’ am an ‘atheist’, he became interested in ‘me’, and soon ‘we’ develop a

rapport, of more than just a communal smoking, and start discussing a lot of

matters from Nietzsche’s ‘God is dead’ to magic and science, even ‘he’ think ‘he’

too becomes an ‘ateat’ (initially, ‘I’ méconnaisse it as ‘atit’ a bit latter through the

context of his talk ‘I’ recognized that perhaps ‘he’ pronounced ‘atheist’ this way!)

and advised me don’t tell other’s that ‘you are an atheist’ because it is

dangerous, and to some extent he was right, being a minority means to expect

discrimination or censor one-self in public, in their society being an ‘atheist’

considered more un-expectable than a Hindu, Sikh or Christian even from a

‘Mirzai’ the newly born minority just mentioned above, and during those chit-chat
‘I’ come to know that he even did not know ‘Bangladesh’ once part of his state,

and many ‘stranded Pakistanis’ are still living there in ‘refugee-like camps’, may

be because of his age, he seems to be born in eighties!

iv
This epigraph cited from Derrida’s (2005) Rogues: two essays on reason, though

in this epigraph here Derrida is explicitly discussing states only, and in particular

‘rogue state’ or ‘etate vouys’, but as the text bring in the debate of ‘rogue’ and

‘vouys’ as a person’, ‘individual’ and to some extent ‘rogue’ or ‘vouys’

organization (or institution) in general, as a specific formation of these words

‘rogue’ or ‘vouys’ historically in France and their theoretical link to democracy

with regard to Greece, and their contemporary deployment in inter-state

relations, and drawing from it so many consequences and conclusions or rather

indicating in passing so many aporias and things related to ‘democracy’, ‘peace’

and ‘human rights’ so on…

v
Here, where, there, you are reading, or-and writing at once, this case both in the

medical and legal sense, keep in sight, that it (‘the case’) was narrated in a

‘manner’ and ‘style’, ‘where, there, here’ an ‘I’, ‘me’ and other subject positions

that narrates the narrator as a ‘character-actor’ of the narrative and ‘it’, ‘he’ and

other positions may play a play ‘at once’ or ‘by turn’, alternatively, also the

narrative departed from the ‘traditional’ style and manner of narrating, making,

presenting a case both in the medical and legal sense; so it demands a bit ‘care’

to read the heterogeneous senses, even non-senses, produced here!

vi
Just an allusion to a late debate between Lacan-Derrida about a letter would

either arrived or not arrived to its destination, for details see Muller & Richardson
(1988) The purloined poe...

vii
Here and elsewhere the ‘Punjabi’ words and phrases being translated to convey
at least one sense they usually have in the Punjabi, the ‘lingua franca’ there, and
mostly follow the Punjabi-English dictionary,
viii
May be someone like to write another thesis like ‘Mental health regime and its

relation with socio-political struggles: from colonial time to now’…

ix
In passing it could be mentioned the (anti-)psychiatrist regime of ‘Mental Health’

and its normative conditions could found so many exception here of their

functioning, for example an overview of one contemporary debate within WHO’s

framework could be read in ‘The Resource Book on Mental Health, Human Rights

and Legislation’ and other documents available at the website or otherwise, for

deconstruction of ‘Human Rights’ and related themes Derrida’s many texts could

be cited, one is mentioned in the narrative fragment ‘Rogues: two essays on

reason’, for the genealogical/archeological working out of the problematic

Foucault’s ‘Madness and Civilization: A history of insanity in the age of reason’, for

a critique of the notion of ‘mental illness’ Szasz’s ‘The Myth of Mental Illness’, for

its relation with the ‘family’ ‘institution’ and its critique, works of R. D. Lang, D.

Cooper, A. Esterson, and so many other’s works, so on, how these are related with

this text and in this specific context, there are some places where they frame

these fragments, for more rigorous works that could describe and analysis it

better latter perhaps!