“Bolo Durga Maa ki…Jai!”
The bus started with a screeching jolt. The faces in the bus were glistening. Adorned in new clothes, bright jewellery and nail polish, their exuberant chants filled the air. An hour ago my spirit had been dampened when a local traffic guide pointed to where I wanted to go saying “the pagla hospital is that side.” I lamented in my head about stigma and labelling and wondered whether our work, whether Anjali’s philosophy would ever actually permeate into the social fabric. Whether people with psychosocial disability would realise social inclusion.
Durga Puja.
It smells of thrill, sweat, newness, anticipation, and hope.
Every year, on this day, some residents in 4 mental hospitals wake up at the crack of dawn. Their hearts full of anticipation for that one day in the year when they stand on the other side of the big iron gates. The side they know is freedom, is home, is inclusion. As the bus grunted its way through the busy bylanes, Kolkata was getting ready to begin its annual love affair. Just like the residents, the city is embellished in grandeur during this time. There’s something rebellious about Durga Puja. For nearly a week, we celebrate the return of a goddess; a woman. As you lock eyes with the Durga, gape at the trident in the mahishasura’s heart, you can almost taste the ferocity, the hope. The hope for good. It’s exactly this hope that I have found year after year in the eyes of the residents. I’ve often wondered what keeps them going, in a world of apathy, squalor, banishment, how do they find the will to smile their biggest smile at me, hold my hand tightly, ask me how I am and enquire about MY life? In all these years of searching for an answer, I stumbled upon it this time. Anjali. Anjali is an offering. An offering of hope, of unconditional love.
There’s something rebellious about Anjali too. While the whole world looks the other way from people living in mental hospitals, Anjali wears them like a cape of pride. During Durga Puja, when the world passes by in their own festive bubble, Anjali reminds them of these individuals who are forgotten in one corner. Durga Puja is about inclusivity. When you’re standing in a crowd of hundreds, everybody is equal. During Durga Puja there’s space for everyone. And nobody knows the value of space and inclusion like these individuals do.
The cohort of residents clambered down from the buses and made their way into the puja pandals in disciplined geometrical lines. Holding hands, chattering away, awaiting their turn patiently for a soothing bottle of thums-up, exchanging giggles, posing for photographs, and never, ever forgetting to ask us whether we are enjoying ourselves too. “Do you want to have icecream?” they chuckle at us. Do seclusion and disenfranchisement make them sensitive to others?
I sensed searching looks from the crowd in one of the most bustling puja pandals in the city. People trying to make out who the residents were, where they had come from. That’s when I caught a glimpse of it- a woman pushed forward a chair for Pompa, one of our oldest participants who has spent many a durga puja within the gloomy walls of a hospital, beckoning her to sit near her. For us, it’s a split second of attention. I wondered what that one gesture would mean for Pompa. Maybe on lonely nights on a tattered, mouldy bed she would clutch this memory to her chest, for it would reassure her that somewhere out there she had been accepted. I scoffed in my head at the traffic guide of the morning. ‘Social inclusion,’ I smiled to myself.
During lunchtime, before sitting down to eat, the participants huddle around all of us, imploring us to eat first. Some of them wait their turn so that space is freed up for us. You would think that years of neglect and stigma would mute their emotions, make them less considerate of others, make them want to grab whatever came their way. But I have learnt grace and generosity from these very dispossessed people. They’re abandoned, unwanted, and still seem to make all of us feel so welcome, so…wanted. Anjali, one of our participants told me that she enjoyed talking to me. I asked her why. She said because I asked her about her story and listened to it. Was it really that simple to connect? A little while later I saw as she lay down next to her friend and chatted away, their fingers interlocked. What do these interactions mean to them? These stolen moments where they are not reprimanded for touching another person. Does it light a fire in their hearts that keep them warm? Do they yearn to snuggle with their friends or hold hands and go to sleep? Or just hug someone and feel another heartbeat against theirs, helping them get through these black and white days. I’m certain they do.
My heart breaks a little when time closes in for them to go back behind those gates. Time stands still in these hospitals. The lights and opulence of the puja pandals are replaced by morbid walls with peeled off colours; smells of incense and street food replaced by the stench of littered, stale food and old drugs. I wonder what stories they share with their friends back in the wards. I wonder if we could have a puja pandal right there in the hospital, for just five days of colour and clanging bells. I wonder how different their lives would be without Anjali. I wonder why there isn’t an Anjali is every city of every state of every country.
The goddess goes back, with a promise of return. They return to their wards, with a promise of meeting her a year on.
Anjali is an offering. An offering of hope.