The Madness Within

Episode 1- The entrée

It was a dark, silent night, punctuated only by an occasional bark of a dog, or footsteps of a beggar. But suddenly, a new set of footsteps could be heard. Several new steps. All new sounds were hurried, as if several steps are chasing someone. From a small distance, the sound of someone breathing heavily could also be heard. Some time later, with utmost predictability, the sounds stopped, and were replaced by new ones which included someone slapping, a cry of pain and a hush of whisper. On straining closer, a rough, dreamy voice was heard to be saying, “Believe me sir. That man had plans to murder me. He used to follow me daily to my home and watch me even when I would in bathroom. Please. I had to kill him. I had no choice!” The voice started crying. Crying out aloud, as if to seek divine help. None descended and the others, obviously the police, dragged him to their jeep. The silence of the night returned, only to be punctuated by the wailing siren of the police car.

“Hello. Is this Dr Poonam? This is Sub Inspector Shirsath talking.”

“Yes, its me. What happened?”

“Ma’am, we have a murderer here who appears to be crazy. Can you check him and give your opinion?”

“First of all, you do not call them crazy!” she thundered, “And secondly, I am attached to JG group of hospitals. You may send your prisoner there with adequate security cover.” Saying this, she put the phone down.

“Damn it!” Shirsath muttered. He hated doctors and Dr Poonam was just giving him a new headache. The older headache was rattling the bars of his cell in his jail, shouting, “Let me out! Let me out! These walls are full of monsters ready to eat me!”  Cursing under his breath, he walked into the cell and ordered the constables to tie that man down and gag his mouth, humane treatment of th mentally be damned. He was sick of the constant rattling, crying and shouting of the mad murderer. “Just one more day,” he thought, with the drawl of his cigarette relaxing him, “just one more day of this madness.” Oh dear, he absolutely had no idea.

It was a long wait outside Dr Poonam’s clinic the next day. From the depressed to the oppressed, from the alcoholics to the druggies; they were all there. And in the middle of them all was the mad murderer, all chained up and surrounded by the police. Dr Poonam conducted the preliminary history taking, examination and followed it up with various tests devised to assess the mind. She came up with one conclusion, “Paranoid schizophrenia. He is suffering from a mental disorder that will make him think that everybody else is out to kill him or harm him in some way. And he will go to any extreme to negate that ‘risk’, even murder the person. I think he committed the murder under its influence.”

“Will you depose your statement in court?” Shirsath asked.

“Yes, I will. Further, I advise that he be admitted in our psychiatric ward. We will keep him in isolation room. Don’t worry.”

“Fine then. See you soon ma’am. And thank you for your help,” Shirsath offered a cold handshake that Dr Poonam didn’t care to reciprocate.

Somewhere else, in a typical hideout

It was a night of wil celebration. Jaggi and his gang had just pulled off the biggest supaari, contract killing of their lives by bumping off the Czar of jewellary business, Mr Rudrashish Majumdar. Their only worry was that their man, Shyam had been arrested by police. Jaggi was worried what might happen if Shyam decided to spill the beans. The educated ones are softer and less resistant to physical torture, the gang members told him. But he was insistent on hiring Shyam for the contract killing business. For one, the man was trained in Police Institute and held a degree in Forensic Psychiatry. And the second, and more important reason, he was angry with the government after his father had died in a train accident and the government did literally nothing. It was a deadly combination- a man with the right knowledge, training and anger all mixed in one violent mind.

But there were no news from him for the two days after the murder. Events of the murder were all over the place and the media reported that Rudrashish was killed by a ‘mad murderer’. Jaggi frowned. Shyam was anything but mad. He was the smartest guy he had met, and the smoothest of talkers and swiftest of killers. Just when doubts had begun to creep in his mind, he reeceived a text message from an unknown number: “Police can’t arrest me. I will be proven a mad man in the court and will be admitted in a mental hospital for sometime. Plan my escape from there. – Shyam”

A jubilant Jaggi called his minions and gave them a lecture on why the boss (in this case, himself) should alwaysbe right, and his decision to hire the educted murderer was the best in gang business.

“So boss, how will we free him?” Chintu, one of the minions asked.

“Are you crazy Chintu? Who said we will free him? Do you want rival gangs to mock  us for keeping a crazy man? He thougt his craziness is his escape plan. Wrong. He might have been the most educated, but I am still the smartest guy here. He as unwittingly ensured our safety. Now even if he spills out our names in court, nobody would believe a mad man, right? No. He will stay in that mental hospital. We can always hire another killer!”

Episode 2- The course

The doctor walked up to the man staring empty space, and tapped his shoulder.

“So, come again about the voices you hear.”

“Sir,” he whispered, “they’re terrifying. Sometimes they shout, scream, bite at me. The next moment, they are soothing, reassuring. But I am truly terrified when they threaten me!”

“Threaten you? With what?”

He stared. He stared into emty space all around the doctr. And then, he stared right into the doctor’s eyes. He kept on staring till the doctor’s eyes began to burn. Tearing himself away from the mad, yet mesmeric gaze, the doctor asked again, “What do they threaten you with?” He leaned closer to the doctor’s ear and whispered, “Murder!” Saying this he screeched out loud, a voice barely resembling the laughter he intended to produce. Stung from the experience, the doctor walked away, scribbling away his daily notes.

It was a daily routine at JG Asylum for the Mentally Challenged. The inmate, Shyam, would scare the daylights out of most of the young doctors who would try to examine him. Only Dr Poonam was able to contain him, that too only fleetingly. The inmate was clearly proving to be a bigger headache than most expected. Inwardly, Shyam smiled. His plan was woring perfectly. Almost perfectly, that is. He was waiting for Jaggi to come and rescue him. When the ‘security’ arrangements includes a door with a rusted lock, guarded by an anemic ward boy, escape doesn’t seem so difficult. It was not so much a question of how, as it was of when.

“Here, take these medications,” the nurse handed over a couple of pills to Shyam. He stared at her blankly for some time, then took the drugs. Slowly, he moved the hand towards his mout, as if to swallow the pills. Then all of a sudden, he threw the pills at the nurse and laughed aloud, hysterically. Terrified, the nurse ran away. Shyam was perfectly evading the anti psychotics. But, what did they say about perfect plans? Something like, perfect plans don’t exist.

“His psychosis is increasing daily ma’am. He doesn’t allow us to examine him, behaves violently and always murmurs about strange sounds in his head threatening to kill him,” Dr Tejasvi, first year psychiatry resident said. Dr Poonam nodded. She had heard all sorts of reports about their new patient. Clearly, he required medications to suppress his violent behaviour or an ECT, in her opinion. But before that, he needed a trial of anti-psychotics. Dismissing her juniors, she sat down and devised of a plan to give him the drugs. It was cruel, and beyond the prescribed course of textbook, but to her, it seemed the only alternative.

“Hey where’s my food?” a clearly agitated Shyam asked the ward boy.

“Your food has been witheld. From now on, you will only receive multivitamin tablets till your vitamin levels are normal,” replied the ward boy, a script drilled intohis brain by Dr Poonam.

“Bullshit! Vitamin levels? You think I am mad?” an angrly Shyam retaliated. The ward boy merely smiled and said, “Everyone here is, my friend. Now take your tablets and go to sleep.” Shyam threw the tablets away in an instant and, ignoring the growls in his stomach, he went to sleep. The plan wasn’t going exactly as he had planned. It was getting worse for him daily. In his gut, a feeling sank that Jaggi might not come to his rescue after all, and he might havto find a way out of this hell by himself. It was difficult, if not an impossible task.

“Shyam,” He whispered, “for how long will you suffer in this shit? Take the pills,earn the confidence of the doctor and run away!”

“Are you crazy?” the Other one whispered. These are mind altering drugs. How can he take them when he doesn’t need them?”

“But then, they will administer an ECT to him. Is that okay? He will lose his memory! Shyam, take the fucking pills!” He ordered.

“No Shyam! Don’t listen to this idiot. Don’t touch the pills!” the Other one shouted.

“Shut up you both!” Shyam shouted out aloud. Realizing he was alone and his shouting would only make him look worse, he stopped. His hands were trembling with cold, as they approched towards the pills. Maybe they were really only multivitamins. Maybe they were anti psychotics. It was almost as if both his cerebral lobes were fighting against each other. He wanted to believe something else, and he knew that what he wanted to believe was false. With trembling hands, he picked up a tablet and swallowed it. A moment later, he did not feel any different. It was just as if he had swallowed a multivitamin. The part of his brain wanting to believe the multivitamin story was giddy with happiness, but the other part, the one which knew, was worried. It was a conflict and the clear loser was Shyam’s consciousness, as he, struggling with the dilemma, fell down and went to sleep…

…only to wake up after twelve hours. When he woke up, there were more pills near his door. Gingerly, he lifted them up and swallowed them, still not sure what to believe. Monitoring his movements ono the CCTV, Dr Poornima smiled inwardly. The cruel, but effective plan was successful.

“Listen you idiot!” He whispered, “This Jaggi fellow isn’t gonna come to save your ass. If you want to escape, you must do it yourself.”

“Ssssh. Don’t listen to him. He wants you to murder that guard and run way. You will be caught in any case?” the Other one argued.

“Look at him! The eternal defeatist! Ha! You will rot here if you follow his advice!” He scoffed.

Voices, voices, everywhere, and not a voice to think.

Shyam woke up after an unknown period of time and found  himself alone in the solitary room, and yet, the silly voices inside his head refused to cease.

“SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP!” He shouted aloud, beating his head with a fist. The guard aught this behaviour on CCTV and alerted Dr Poonam immediately.

Some time later, four ward boys entered Shyam’s room. The tallest one asked Shyam to sit on the wheelchair they had brought. Tired with constant argument in his head, he was too weak to argue with the ward boy, and he slouched on the wheelchair. They carried him out of the cell, across a long corridor, to a room at the end of the corridor. On the top of the room it was written “ECT Room”. Shyam was terrified. Truly terrified. He sprang up and fell on one of the wardboys’ feet and shouted, “Please, please. I am not mad! I am not crazy. It was all acting on my part. Please save me. I don’t want electric shock!” The wardboy lifted him and threw him back on his wheelchair. The he laughed and said, “Har paagal apne aap ko seedha hi kehta hai!” Every madman claims to be sane. He was pushed inside the room where the anesthetist was preparing the general anesthesia required for ECT.

“No, no, no! Please! PLEASE!” He cried, but to no avail. It was then that Dr Poonam intervened.

“Stop,” she ordered tersely, “and send the patient to my room.” Moments later, Shyam’s wheelchair rolled inside Dr Poonam’s room. She looked at him squarely and said in a stern tone, “Tell me the truth.”

Shyam gulped. He was helpless now. Speak the truth and he’d be in jail. Lie and his brains would be fried.

“Ma’am, it was all a plan. I feigned schizophrenia to escape the law. But it seems my acting was way too realistic. My boss, who was supposed to save me, ran away. It seemed a perfect plan, but…” Shyam sobbed.

“But perfect plans don’t exist, do they?” Dr Poonam replied stoically. Ten minutes later, Shirsath and his team surrounded the facility.

It made a view for the newspapers, a gangly, dirty, unkept man, all chained from head to toe being dragged out of a mental institution by the police in a police van. It seemed like the end of Shyam’s story.

But wait. Shyam was an explosion waiting to happen. An explosion couldn’t fizzle out so easily.

Episode-3 The just dessert

It is often a source of comfort, sometimes boredom to be stuck in a routine. Only rarely it is a terrifying proposition. But when the routine involves daily beatings, abuses and food being thrown on face thrice a day, one does not blame the terrified. Shyam was ne such man. Ever since he was shifted to the jail, he was tortured on a daily basis, with hope that he would spill out the truth. But he repeatedly said the same line, “Sir, they told me to do so, the voices!” Cue: more thrashings.

“You fool! Why are you rotting in the prison while that ass Jaggi is roaming in the streets?” He whispered in a rasping voice.

“Because he has no option. He cant escape from here,” the Other one replied calmly.

“Shut up you loser! You murdered your way in the jail, now murder your way out!” He ordered.

“No Shyam! Don’t listen to Him. He is a fool, a liar. He told you to murder Rudrashish in the first place, didn’t he?” the Other One retaliated.

“NO! NO! NO! Please get out of my head you sick bastards!” Shyam shouted. It didn’t help, of course, Only that the calculated whsiperings dispersed into more generalized noises. He clutched his head and leaned down on his hunches, the voices filling his head with their incoherent, indiscernible noise. He had no clue what was happening around him. And then, the noises stopped. His brain was clear once again, like a month old stain being wiped off in an instant. Only one voice spoke in his head- his own. Or perhaps that was what he perceived as his own.

“Shyam, listen to me. You go straight to the guard, steal the keys and run away. Simple as that,” a calm voice instructed him. Shyam followed the instructions almost robotically and walked upto the guard, who was snoring, deep in his sleep. He slid his hand into the guard’s pocket and caught hold of a metallic object. Slowly, he withdrew his hand from the pocket. Just as he was about to take it fully, the old rasping voice was back. He was back. He whispered “Put down the keys. Put them down. The guard will wake up and catch you!” With trembling hands, he followed what He said. He was about to put it back when the calm voice resurfaced, “Shyam, pull it out. You can do it. Its your ticket to freedom!”

“No Shyam! Don’t!” He said

“Hahaha!Look who is a failure now!” the Other one smirked.

“Don’t listen to them Shyam, listen to me,” the calm voice ordered.

And once again, with his hand in the guard’s pocket, his mind was thrown into a whir of voices, all unrecognizable and incognizable.

“STOP IT!!!” he shouted, and his hand which was inside the guard’s pocket, tightened a little. Not entirely knowing what lay there, Shyam was somewhat surprised to hear an explosion which deafened him temporarily. He was even more surprised to see blood coming out of the guard and seeing the guard writhe in pain. It was then that he withdrew his hand out of the pocket, and found himself holding a revolver- the guard’s service revolver. It was the last thing he saw before he was hit on the head by the police and lost consciousness.

It made big news, obviously, an inmate killing a guard and not even trying to escape. What made bigger news were the sights of the prisoner holding his head repeatedly and speaking to an imaginary person. Ofcourse, everybody said, he was acting this time, like he did previously. Nobody was going to be fooled twice by the same act.

He was sentenced solitary confinement for fourteen years. Even today, if you manage to pass by his solitary confinement cell, you could hear someone shouting, “ Shut up you four!” or on some days, “ Shut up you all! Why are ten people yelling at me at the same time?” or sometimes, “Save me! Save me! Take your iron horn and break down the door. Please!” If you take pity and think of entering the cell, hold back. Because, on some days, he also sees Jaggi all around in his cell. Those days can be marked by blood spilling out from his cell. A busy day for the prison doctor.

Trying to escape the punishment of his sin,

Shyam, my firend, got caught by the Madness within.