MADDAW-WHAT?!

The following is an article I wrote and submitted for publication in a mental health magazine at All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), DELHI. 

“Mad is an everyday, ordinary word. It is compact. It fits into songs. As the old Hindi film song has it, M-A-D, mad maane paagal. It can become a phrase - "Maddaw-what?" which began life as "Are you mad or what?". It can be everything you choose it to be: a mad whirl, a mad idea, a mad March day, a mad heiress, a mad mad mad mad world, a mad passion, a mad dog. But it is different when you have a mad mother. Then the world wakes up from time to time and blinks at you, eyes of fire.”

An excerpt from autobiographical book ‘Em and the Big Hoom’ by Jerry Pinto.

It’s a story narrated from a Son’s point of view about living in a family with a bi-polar mother.

In this extract the writer sardonically describes how being differently able in our society is perceived as a social stigma and how easy going and casual we are while using the word ‘mad’. The word ‘mad’ now connotes an amusing tone to it in our day to day lives and it doesn’t even alarm our conscience for a split second.

It is scientifically proven that mutations might occur arbitrarily in our genes. These mutations might give rise an idiosyncratic behaviour in such individual. And because we aren’t empathetic and aware about the subject that’s why we choose to keep the subject clandestine in the society.

But why any individual should live a life secluded and isolated when he could very well get help from science. Medical sciences have evolved over thousands of years and due the contribution of several scientists and their ideas and breakthroughs we’ve reached a point where we could treat and most likely cure an individual.

These side-lined, mocked and special people must be dealt with empathy and rationality instead of treading on vestiges of stigmas or taboos of our society.

After all life’s a miracle. Every life must be celebrated and respected.