Full transcript
0:04[music]
0:09[music]
0:17>> Hello everyone. I welcome you to the
0:19week six of our course introduction to
0:23medical humanities. We have really come
0:25a long way in this uh course and in this
0:28week, I am going to talk about mental
0:30health issues. I deal with madness,
0:33anxiety, stress, depression, all uh
0:37these kind of issues as reflected in
0:39literary and cultural texts. Now, the
0:42first title that I take up is called the
0:44politics of going mad and how does
0:47madness trope
0:50represent itself in some of the literary
0:53text I will take up. For this particular
0:55lecture, I pick up Jerry Pinto. Before
0:58we begin, I'll quickly go through a
1:00lecture overview as to what I'm going to
1:02talk about. I will talk about uh
1:05stigma associated with mental health and
1:07follow it up with medicalization of
1:09stigma and take up literary
1:11representation of madness in some of the
1:14text conventionally that we have seen
1:17and then focus on the writer that we are
1:19going to analyze and take up two of his
1:21works, M and the Big Home, which was
1:24published in 2012 and a Book of Light,
1:27which came out in 2016 and look at the
1:30reflections of how the polyphonic
1:34narratives of madness take place. While
1:36we do this, we will also analyze some
1:39other themes like caregiver fatigue,
1:42invisible labor of family, and also look
1:45at how literary forms because when you
1:48look at M and the Big Home, it's a
1:51novel, but a Book of Light is an
1:53anthology. So,
1:55even uh
1:56in terms of generic division, how does
1:59that narrative change the representation
2:01that we will take up? Uh that will be
2:03part of my lecture today.
2:06Let us quickly go to uh the prime
2:09theoretical framework that I have
2:10identified for this course, which is
2:13stigma associated with mental health.
2:16Now,
2:17in the field of medical humanities, as I
2:19have emphasized earlier, that illness is
2:23experienced or understood through lived
2:26experience as narratives and
2:29not just clinical engagement.
2:32Medical side of it is important, but
2:35what we emphasize in medical humanities
2:38is how the social construct is taking
2:41place.
2:42What is mental health then? On your
2:44screen, it refers to psychological and
2:47emotional condition that affect
2:50cognition, mood, and behavior
2:52influencing how individuals function in
2:55everyday life.
2:57Now, when we
2:58pick up
3:00these characteristics like mood,
3:03behavior, cognition,
3:06they do not have very set parameters.
3:10And that is why when you
3:12want to have a clear-cut definition or
3:15straight line or you
3:18bracket mental health or mental illness,
3:21it's very problematic because
3:24for somebody, it is their natural
3:26behavior.
3:27So, uh mental health is a very gray area
3:31even now and
3:32a lot of discussion uh quite a few
3:35number of research is going on. In the
3:37case of India, we have Mental Health
3:39Care Act 2017, which is a
3:42I mean, extremely positive shift towards
3:44recognizing the mental health conditions
3:47and the way in which we are going to
3:50take it up in future and now. So,
3:53globally if you look at the data suggest
3:55research that was done in 2017 that 970
3:59million people have had mental health
4:02disorder. Now, look at the choice of the
4:04word. It doesn't say illness, it doesn't
4:07say disease, it say disorder. Why?
4:10Because we don't know. We cannot
4:11pinpoint a finger and say this is the
4:14diagnosis.
4:15This may be the diagnosis because it is
4:18about something which is also behavioral
4:21in in nature. So, mental health becomes
4:24a very
4:26fluid kind of a space to find a concrete
4:29structure of. But, NIMH, which is
4:33National Institute of Mental Health,
4:35talks about two categories of mental
4:38health. One they call any mental
4:41illness, which is like anxiety
4:43disorders, eating disorders.
4:45You must have heard of
4:48many others like you know, who have this
4:52Usually, they want to be
4:55very clean. They now use the term in
4:57very general sense, which is a matter of
4:59debate as well. So, and then there are
5:02serious mental illness. So, you talk
5:05about schizophrenia, bipolar disorder,
5:08these kind of mental disorders into
5:10serious. So, any
5:12will have
5:14behavioral attitude related disorders
5:17mostly and a serious mental illness will
5:19have some kind of clinical component.
5:22They can be measured through the
5:23diagnostic tool prescribed by WHO.
5:26>> [sighs]
5:27>> Now, another way in which the stigma
5:30operates within the mental health
5:33scope is
5:36interpersonal, intrapersonal, and
5:39structural. Now,
5:41stigma
5:43because this is a social construct, how
5:46society responds to the
5:50mental health disorder is
5:53also taken into consideration and
5:55sometimes it builds the stigma because
5:57there are many stereotypes, prejudices,
6:00and discrimination
6:02attached to how people perceive people
6:05with mental health issues. Now, in this
6:08regard, when you talk about the stigma,
6:11it can be interpersonal, it can be
6:13intrapersonal, and it can be structural.
6:17Now, we'll come to this definition one
6:18by one.
6:19When you talk about interpersonal
6:21stigma, it involves the negative or
6:23discriminatory attitude that others may
6:26have about your mental illness. Clearly
6:29indicating that it is basically the
6:32community, the society, or the family,
6:36how someone else responds to your mental
6:38illness, that is what you can term as
6:41interpersonal. You internalize that. So,
6:46these negative attitudes, including
6:48shame that people with mental illness
6:51may have their own condition. Because
6:54there are so many constructs around
6:56mental health and how people are
6:58responding, you automatically began to
7:01internalize that shame, which is
7:04outside, but
7:06you cannot escape from internalizing it,
7:09and then it becomes
7:11what
7:12is termed as intrapersonal stigma.
7:16There is also something called
7:18structural stigma.
7:21Beyond the individual and the society
7:24and the community, there is also this
7:26layer of institutions,
7:29policies, legal framework. All these
7:33affecting to how your interpersonal and
7:37intrapersonal stigma will shape up. Say,
7:40for example,
7:42I mean, you know, in this entire week I
7:44will keep on reiterating Mental Health
7:47Care Act 2017 and uh I can't stop uh
7:52gushing about how progressive a move it
7:55is uh because it kind of shifts the
7:58perspective towards a very positivist
8:00attitude and therefore when you look at
8:02even the structural stigma you find that
8:06this act destigmatized
8:08many of the things that we associated
8:11in mental health care or in mental
8:13health uh as a criminal activity like
8:17somebody who attempted suicide. It was
8:18clearly a colonial import and had not
8:21died down till about 2017 when these
8:24issues were taken into consideration and
8:27the whole idea from punitive to
8:30therapeutic to recuperative was intended
8:33and incorporated within the health care
8:35act. Finally, when we uh think of uh
8:38uh
8:39all these kind of stigma, it is also
8:41culture-oriented and it may vary across
8:45different cultures but at the same time
8:47it might also become a barrier to the
8:51mental health discourse in a progressive
8:53way.
8:54So uh on that note, I think it's
8:56important to uh focus our shift in terms
9:00of how literature has dealt with uh the
9:03representation of madness. In fact,
9:06literature is replete with such
9:08examples. Uh you will find uh many, many
9:11examples that are around
9:14the reflection of
9:17mental health
9:18as a madness trope. So
9:21particular reference to Michel Foucault
9:23Madness and Civilization where it's
9:26explained how societies historically
9:28constructed and controlled the idea of
9:31madness through institutions and social
9:34norms.
9:35So broadly speaking, this meant that
9:39someone who is not
9:41following
9:42the set protocols of the society,
9:46they will be penalized. So, any kind of
9:49defiance or deviance was termed as not
9:54complying. And there were institutions
9:57and social norms that set them right. Uh
10:01so, society has built institutions like
10:04prisons, uh asylum, sanatorium, all this
10:08not with the intention to heal, but to
10:12contain and define those who deviated
10:15from the social norms. What this means
10:17that the whole intent was very punitive
10:20in its approach.
10:21Literary texts have also gone to reveal
10:24or reflect that kind of a phenomena. We
10:26know that
10:29literature affects society and society
10:31affects literature. And that phenomena
10:33you will always find when you read the
10:36text and try to map it along the
10:38timeline. Uh in fact, that is a very
10:41good reading strategy that I will ask
10:43you to formulate. Always when you are
10:46reading a particular text or watching a
10:48particular film, if it has a social
10:51issue component,
10:53try to map it with the timeline. Try to
10:56map it with the legal aspect. Now, uh
10:59with uh the interdisciplinary and
11:01multi-disciplinary edge that has taken
11:04up entire reading discourse and academic
11:07research too, I think that is the
11:09beginning point of where our reading
11:11should begin. In this case, I give you
11:14some clue on how to do that, uh but of
11:17course, you can expand it uh
11:19for your uh research or your reading.
11:22So, let us come to two, three examples
11:24that I have noted here. There is Sylvia
11:26Plath, uh The Bell Jar. You have Mrs.
11:29Dalloway. And you have Virginia Woolf,
11:32the Yellow Paper by Charlotte Perkins
11:34Gilman which you can
11:37think of as a reference point and in all
11:39these texts you will find that there is
11:42a reference of mental illness within the
11:45trope of madness. At this point of time
11:48it is also important we go back to Rita
11:51Sharon who talked about narrative
11:53medicine and if you remember I discussed
11:56her in great detail in perhaps lecture
11:58four where I discussed three theorists,
12:01the narrative of the patient and the
12:04people associated with that patient.
12:07All their experience
12:10has to be
12:11noted down because
12:13only the narration will be helpful in
12:19sort of bringing that uh
12:21experience on to page.
12:23So if there is any form any structure
12:26that can be provided to the experience
12:29you felt at that time, it is only
12:32through narration and narrating has a
12:35pathologizing effect. So she calls it uh
12:38narrative medicine as a theoretical
12:40framework.
12:42Let me come to Jerry Pinto. In fact,
12:44he's a very famous novelist, poet,
12:47translator and journalist. Many
12:49important works that I have listed here.
12:52You have Surviving Women, Asylum and
12:54Other Poems, Helen, The Life and Times
12:57of an H-Bomb, M and the Big Home which
12:59we are taking for discussion, When Crows
13:02Are White,
13:03A Book of Light again our book for
13:06discussion today and Murders in Mahim.
13:09So the first book that we are going to
13:11discuss today, M and the Big Home which
13:14was published in 2016 also received
13:17Sahitya Akademi Award.
13:19So it's the biggest honor in India for
13:22any literary work. So this book because
13:25it came out
13:27at a time when mental health issues were
13:29really picking up and this was about a
13:32child whose mother has bipolar disorder
13:36and father is the primary caregiver and
13:38the entire novel is written from the
13:40perspective of that young boy.
13:42I think it was very timely
13:44for not just the book to gain attention
13:48but also for the Indian society. So
13:50Indian society in that sense was ready.
13:52So if you again map the timeline, his
13:54book comes 2016 he gets Sahitya Akademi
13:57and 2017 is Mental Healthcare Act. So
14:00you can clearly see that the society as
14:03an apparatus was
14:05getting ready for a shift in the
14:08discourse of how we perceived mental
14:10health. So I mean most of his work have
14:14contributed to mental health discourse
14:16and that is why we have
14:19chosen him to be one of the authors or
14:22to begin our lecture with Jerry Pinto.
14:25Like I discussed, M and the Big Home
14:28came out in 2012 and in 2016 it received
14:32the Sahitya Akademi Book Prize.
14:34The book is
14:36partly autobiographical in nature and it
14:39is
14:40about an unnamed son
14:43who has M and Big Home as parents. Now M
14:48is
14:49having
14:51bipolar disorder
14:52and Big Home is his father and the
14:56primary caregiver of M.
14:59This is set in a Goa Catholic family in
15:02Mumbai and it moves from the memory of
15:06the past to present and the
15:09cost a family has to pay as a family
15:13unit.
15:15Now
15:16if you
15:17walk through the pages of the book, if
15:20you read the book, will find that
15:23the narratives are not having a very
15:26linear pace.
15:29So, just like M, who is
15:33suffering from
15:35bipolar disorder,
15:37the oscillation in her mind is also
15:41oscillated
15:43in the reflection of how this young boy
15:46perceives the shift.
15:49So, the non-linear
15:52storyline chronicles the life of a
15:55family's chaotic struggle with M's
15:57disorder, her euphoric flamboyance,
16:00strained charm, and paranoid attempts at
16:03suicide. Now, the entire
16:06novel is written from a young boy's
16:08perspective. And that is why when you
16:11read the book, you will find
16:14that that there is certain kind of
16:16vulnerability also
16:18attached to it because for a young boy
16:21to understand what is happening, because
16:24with bipolar disorder, it is not
16:26visible.
16:28And therefore, he doesn't know why my
16:29mother wants to attempt suicide, why
16:33she's having these kind of
16:35erratic mood swings. So,
16:38even when you read the text, you will
16:40find that these kind of narratives very
16:42much are in
16:43place. I will quote from the text and
16:45you should follow it.
16:47It says,
16:48"If you have a story that you would not
16:50like to share, but still would like to
16:53commit to the word, write it down,
16:55record it, draw it, paint it, shape it,
17:00and in some way.
17:01I cannot assure you that it will help,
17:04but it will not harm you."
17:06Pinto did exactly that. So, because it
17:10was it is considered to be a
17:11semi-autobiographical novel, writing,
17:15you remember just now I mentioned
17:17narrative medicine as a term? So,
17:20narration in itself became a process of
17:24not just documenting, but living the
17:27experience and documenting it for the
17:29purpose of
17:31pathologizing it.
17:33So, that is what happens in M and Big
17:36Home.
17:38Let us go character by character. Uh
17:41first, let us focus on M. So, M is the
17:45mother in the novel. She is having
17:48bipolar disorder, and it's very complex
17:50how bipolar means bipolar, if you know
17:53know that two personalities into one.
17:56So, there are periods when she's
17:58extremely charged, full of energy, but
18:01there are also times when she's hugely
18:04into depression.
18:05She's hospitalized for
18:08suicide attempts, and the young boy
18:11through whose perspective this entire
18:14novel is written,
18:16he finds this situation
18:19very problematic because he doesn't know
18:22what is going to happen.
18:25Uh
18:25there is
18:26care from her father, which is not
18:29understandable to him.
18:31Then there is institutional
18:32intervention, and then comes the family
18:35responsibility. Institutional
18:36intervention as in how is the hospital
18:38responding to? What are people saying?
18:40So, you find the chaos not only in the
18:45novel as to how it is happening, but
18:47also in the mind of
18:50the child as a family unit to how he is
18:54responding to his mother's bipolar
18:56disorder. I'll quote it from here.
18:59I wanted to understand her predicament
19:02because I was her son, and I loved her
19:04with a helpless corroded love. So, look
19:07at the choice of the words Pinto make. I
19:10was her son, and I loved her with a
19:13helpless, corroded love. So, there was
19:16nothing that could diminish the love of
19:19her son towards his mother despite
19:22everything that her family was
19:24undergoing because her mother was
19:27uh having a bipolar disorder. So,
19:30when you
19:32uh see M's character, it also
19:35foregrounds how maternal mental health
19:37illness becomes a shared emotional
19:40experience for the entire family,
19:42reflecting the broader politics of
19:45mental health and caregiving. And why do
19:48I say that? Because in most of the
19:50families, it is the mother who is
19:53holding the entire structure of the
19:55family. Who will be uh given what? What
19:59is it the family demands? What are the
20:01needs? What are the desires? Everything
20:03is pulled together by mothers. So, she's
20:05the primary caregiver. But in the case
20:08of Pinto's M and Big Home, you find that
20:12the primary caregiver is the one who
20:13needs primary care.
20:15So, it is a very complex kind of a
20:18situation. And in a in from the uh son's
20:22perspective, he's the one who should be
20:24cared, but now he's in a helpless
20:26situation. He can't care for his mother
20:28because he's very young. And uh his
20:31mother doesn't care for him the way he
20:33wants. So, it's a very difficult
20:35situation so to be portrayed in by Jerry
20:38Pinto.
20:40Like I said, uh
20:42when there is a mental health issue,
20:45it's not just the individual who
20:46suffers, but it is the family who gets
20:49into the distress. And in the
20:51introduction part itself, Pinto says
20:55about his mother, "The beedi-smoking,
20:58hyperactive mother driven frequently to
21:01the hospital by her mania and failed
21:03suicide attempts, and her father, the
21:06Big whom as the rock solid dependable
21:09father trying to hold things together as
21:13best they can. And he finishes the line
21:16by saying they are an extraordinary
21:19family. So,
21:22he also is looking at his parents
21:27from not just a subjective participation
21:29as a family, but also from an objective
21:32gaze where he thinks they're good,
21:34they're extraordinary as a family
21:35because here is this man who is rock
21:37solid, very dependable.
21:40I mean,
21:41over a period of time he has not been
21:43conditioned to be a primary caregiver,
21:45but for his family, he's just there. And
21:49the mother, beedi smoking, hyperactive,
21:52and driven frequently to the hospital
21:54for attempting suicide. So, in that
21:57sense, you find the entire structure
22:00into a distress. So, a quick chart I
22:02have made and you can see on your
22:04screen. You have M.
22:06There is suicidal ideation due to
22:08bipolar disorder. There is big whom, the
22:11primary giver, the husband, primary
22:13caregiver, and
22:15no identity of his own except for that
22:18he's carrying he's the primary caregiver
22:20for
22:21M. You have the narrator son, young
22:24carer, not as efficient as the big whom,
22:27but yes, there is. And
22:30the witness and a chronicler of the
22:32entire event. There is also another
22:34character in the novel, Susan, whose
22:36sister. She's secondary caregiver and
22:39clearly indicating that how when there
22:42is a mental health issue or there is any
22:44issue of illness, the entire family
22:46bears
22:47the shared responsibility. Now, what
22:50does family systems theory say? Pretty
22:53much clear with the term itself that
22:55family is an organism in where illness
22:59is one member ripples through all.
23:03So, this means that
23:05when there is an illness, it is not the
23:07individual who
23:10is
23:11having the illness. The entire family
23:15has certain kind of rippling effect of
23:19the illness that that has happened to
23:21that person.
23:22Pinto
23:24uh dramatizes this relentlessly through
23:26the M's episodes, destabilizing
23:29everyone's routines, relationships, and
23:31inner lives. And therefore,
23:34uh one can conclude when you think of
23:37these instances that if we think of a
23:40family as a unit, if one part of that
23:43organism or one part of that unit is
23:46destabilized, all other parts are also
23:49affected.
23:51The second book in focus is a book of
23:53light. It is a anthology. Now, this
23:56anthology is of writers, journalists,
23:59and caregivers describing their
24:01experience with loved one who has a
24:04different mind. Remember I told you that
24:07we don't use disabled any longer. In
24:10fact, the vocabulary change has led to
24:13shift in the word calling it especially
24:16abled.
24:18This is this At this moment, it looks
24:21like perhaps it is a
24:23surface level change, but definitely
24:26this surface level change has a promise
24:29for leading to a long-term change which
24:33changes the social model of disability,
24:35at least in the context of India. So,
24:37the anthology shifts the focus from
24:40patient alone. Like I said, it's the
24:43family. So, in this particular
24:44anthology, there are family members who
24:47have narrated who have written the essay
24:51of their experience.
24:53We have contributions from Sukant
24:56Deepak, Nirupama Datta, Lalita Iyer,
24:58Manoj Menon and others. And it opens the
25:01private space of you know, like because
25:05the stigma is associated with mental
25:07health, people are usually very quiet,
25:09very secretive, very hush about these
25:12issues. So, in these essays or through
25:15these essays, we find that these private
25:18issues are now open for public scrutiny
25:21and makes the
25:23whole idea of caregiving
25:26in these situations explicit. Now, quite
25:30polyphonic narratives of madness. So,
25:33three essays I pick up from the Book of
25:35Light. We have Sukant Deepak, Papa
25:38Elsewhere, and it is a powerful story of
25:41author's father, Swadesh Deepak, a
25:43celebrated writer with bipolar disorder.
25:46We have My Mother's Breast by Amandeep
25:49Sandhu, which focuses on the
25:51intersection of physical and mental
25:53illness, portraying his mother's
25:55schizophrenia. And we have Abhimanyu,
25:58Our Son by Madhusudan Srinivas, and it's
26:00a beautiful story about a parent trying
26:03to understand their autistic son. So, in
26:07all these narratives, you find
26:11a complex kind of a pain,
26:15emotional turmoil,
26:18and also dilemma,
26:20and helplessness of the caregiver
26:25to someone who is very close. So, in the
26:28first case, you see it's a father. A son
26:31is talking about his father. In the
26:33second case, you find it's about the
26:36person's mother, Amandeep's mother.
26:39And in the third case, it's about a
26:41young son. Now, in all these, you
26:45see that
26:48the illness that they have and the
26:51experience that their
26:53family members as primary caregivers
26:55have felt is
26:58very laid. And that is where you can
27:00also think of Arthur Kleinman, who again
27:03I have already discussed quite a few
27:05times, who discussed the distinction
27:07between disease and how this whole idea
27:11of culturally uh
27:14finding a meaning for the illness
27:16resonates with Indian realities, where
27:19stigma is important or uh it's kind of
27:23uh shadowing the way we perceive mental
27:27health issues or mental illness.
27:31Uh the Book of Light, through the essays
27:33that we have read, also discusses
27:38the
27:39invisible labor. Now, there is not a
27:41very structured system in India about
27:44caregiving, and therefore
27:46who is the primary person responsible?
27:49It's the family. The family as a unit,
27:52not just as a person, but as a family as
27:54a unit takes the responsibility of
27:57caregiving. And many times, what happens
27:59is that there is an invisible labor. So,
28:02it doesn't look like So, if I am, say
28:05for example, giving
28:06uh if there is a family member of mine
28:09and I'm
28:10following the medication routine, uh
28:14what they will what the person will eat
28:16every day, uh
28:18if it is to be done for a very long
28:20time, and despite this uh this person is
28:23my family member, there will be uh the
28:26whole effort goes unnoticed sometimes.
28:29So, this is an invisible labor. So, that
28:31is what A Book of Light also talks
28:33about, because
28:35it builds into a semi-fictional world,
28:37and uh both these, the novel and the
28:40anthology, talk about how caregiving
28:43uh involves sustained emotional labor
28:46shaped by love, frustration, duty, and
28:49silence. So, it's not all hunky-dory,
28:52but it is also a problematic at times
28:55because dealing with so much of
28:57caregiving under such distress and
29:02unpredictability
29:03is something that we have to think
29:05about. And Pinto writes, "M was not mad.
29:08She was
29:10simply another malingerer. Like any
29:12other malingerer, she wanted to evade
29:14her ordinary responsibilities."
29:16And Pinto shows how mental health or
29:20mental illness becomes a family
29:22condition, not because everyone is ill,
29:24but because everyone is entangled with
29:27it. And that is where you come across
29:30Rita Sharon and Montella, who talks
29:33about this particular phenomena and say,
29:36"To follow the patient's narrative
29:38thread to make sense of his or her
29:40figure of language, to grasp the
29:43significance of story told, and to
29:45imagine the illness from its conflicting
29:47perspectives, you have to take into
29:50consideration
29:52all other experiences that are having
29:55within the space in which the person
29:57with mental health is there."
30:01I discussed it earlier, the caregiver
30:04fatigue, where constant caregiving
30:07becomes a matter of fatigue as well
30:10because those who provide long-term care
30:14can probably get exhausted. So, it's a
30:17very normal phenomena which has been
30:19taken into consideration very recently.
30:23So, Joan Tronto says, "Care involves
30:26ongoing responsibility, attentiveness,
30:29and moral commitment, which can become
30:31overwhelming when support systems are
30:34absent." So, clearly indicating what I
30:36said just a while ago that in the
30:38absence of very structured kind of a
30:41system, this might the constant
30:43individual caregiving can become
30:45stressful.
30:47So, Pinto writes, "Home was where others
30:50had to gather grace. Home was what I
30:53wanted to flee."
30:55So, he was also a caregiver, uh
30:58not as efficient, like I said, as Big
31:00Home, but he was also a caregiver. So,
31:02he talks about home as a paradoxical
31:05space. So,
31:07towards home you go to find solace,
31:11gather grace, but he says,
31:13"I wanted to flee from there. I just
31:15wanted to run away."
31:17So,
31:17uh when you think of this particular
31:20line, you think of caregiver fatigue,
31:23and also it you can back it up with
31:25Arthur W. Frank, who explains that
31:28illness affects not only the patient,
31:30but also the care network. He uses a
31:32beautiful term, network. When you talk
31:34about caregiving also in the context of
31:38India, where we have community living,
31:40it's not just one person alone, or the
31:43family member who's responding uh as a
31:46care uh giving person, but it's the
31:48network of people. There are relatives,
31:50there are other people who are coming to
31:53help you, making suffering a shared
31:55experience within families.
31:59Finally, quickly I will uh take up uh
32:01both the forms. Like I said, the
32:04structure also is important. So, if you
32:07look at M and the Big Home, there is no
32:09linear plot, but in the anthology, the
32:12book of you will find that uh it is very
32:15structured, and it it is kept
32:16deliberately in uh novel, the content or
32:20the plot chosen remains of bipolar, but
32:22in anthology, you have different other
32:24kinds of mental health issues, clearly
32:27indicating that there is more to mental
32:29health than just diagnosing and saying,
32:32"This is this, or this is that." So, a
32:35straightjacketing of mental health
32:37issues is uh taken up in both. The
32:41uh anthology uh form actually resist any
32:44kind of pathologization because it's not
32:46the long form. And therefore, it moves
32:49from case to chorus and chorus to
32:51community. Whereas in the M and the big
32:53home, you find that uh the son cannot
32:57summarize completely M. He can just
32:59accumulate her. So, whatever he's
33:01witnessing, he's just kind of noting
33:03down. The reading of the novel looks
33:05like he's just kind of jotting down uh
33:08what he's uh visualizing. And in medical
33:11humanities, we'll call this attention to
33:13form, asking not about what has been
33:16just said, but how whatever you are
33:19saying is shaping a meaning out of it.
33:22Finally, when you uh
33:25think of these institutions, Pinto works
33:28both predate the Mental Healthcare Act
33:30in India. So, he says this, uh
33:33it occurred to me then that the mad in
33:36India are not the mentally ill. They are
33:39simply mad. They have no other identity.
33:42So, in the book, when he writes
33:44something like this, he also points out
33:47at how mental health is
33:51seen uh or the vocabulary of mental
33:54health is having such limited meaning at
33:57that point of time in India. Obviously,
33:59this was written, like I said, before
34:02the Mental Healthcare Act.
34:04Uh
34:04not much has changed, but we are moving
34:07towards a significant change. Thank you
34:09so much. I will now take up the madness
34:12trope in the next lecture vis-a-vis
34:14gender quotient. Thank you.