For Sushmita ( from Sathya )

Dear Sushmita, I have no idea whether this will reach you wherever you are; but this is more for all of us who travelled together for a while in this life. From the time Arti wrote, I have been sifting through memories, which though not many are so vivid in my mind. Forgive me if my representation is not accurate but these are my memories. We belonged, so to speak, to the batch of late 1970s, post emergency, filled with burning  idealism wanting to change the world and, with no clearly formed  ideology, the 'voluntary sector' became the first stone we stepped on. Wishing to work with the poor, we wished to live a life not far removed from them.  So, simple housing, lifestyle, and all that could be covered in a meagre 'honorarium' were what we 'voluntarily' chose. Soon, our ability for 'relentless questioning' led us to see the seamy side of power politics and the structural power of such dynamics which could not be challenged easily and we stepped out to find our uncharted way. We first met in the late 1970s. You and Arti had just left SWRC Tilonia when you both visited me in VHAI to discuss the politics of 'development'. You both were then in a more advanced state of 'development' as I still had on my rose tinted glasses; it was to take another year before the scales fell off my eyes, for me to leave the confines of an institution, forever. Our paths again crossed in Kishore Bharti and later in Bhopal in September 1984 when the pregnancy outcome survey on the Bhopal survivors was being conducted in the midst of immense tension due to threats from the administration. You came when the survey was underway and your first spontaneous comment was that it was so rare and wonderful not to see any visible hierarchy in an activity that was being carried out by more than forty women activists and health workers under such difficult conditions. While the compliment was to me as the coordinator of the survey (words, as you can see, I treasure even today), it said something about you as a person to whom the Chinese poem,  "Go to the people. Live with them. Learn from them. Love them. Start with what they know. Build with what they have. But with the best leaders, when the work is done, the task accomplished, the people will say "We have done this ourselves"', was more than the meaningless mantra it had become in the development world post the lifting of the 'bamboo curtain'. And that was the principle you lived by. Your creativity and unmistakable talent(s) were at the service of the people; what if it was appropriated and claimed by others as their own… with your merry laugh you moved on. Our next major interaction was when your mind began playing tricks on you. With the blurring of the boundary between reality/unreality, you did not know what to trust, whom to trust, the consequence of the 'embodiment' of life's challenges. I was privileged to be one of the persons whom you did trust and you let me spend a week with you in Delhi when treatment was being initiated. Later, you would occasionally call, and we would catch up, the ripples of your laughter echoing in my ears long after I had put the phone down. We continued to keep track of each other through our close friends - Arti and Keerti. One day you called and expressed your desire to visit Mira Sadgopal in Pune to meet the members of a mental health collective and so we went together, on one of the hottest days in May, train leaving from Nizamuddin at the height of the heat (1.30 pm, I think), traveling in a second class compartment, every metal object searing our skin where it touched, the food we took spoilt by the evening, but we talked; for the first time you shared, things I am not at a liberty to reveal. We talked about the gossamer thin veil of sanity, the struggle when the compulsion to walk a different path with ears tuned to a different drummer leads to places unknown and 'knowledges' (insights?!) unsought; what is 'normality' and what is 'non-normality', we wondered. We talked about the medical solutions which were hardly an improvement, yet so critical in reclaiming the 'self' and of course 'radical psychiatry' which denied the role of therapeutics. Not having much emotional baggage to speak of between us, you permitted yourself to lower your defenses and allowed me the privilege accorded to few, to get a glimpse of the lost child within; you who exhibited only your 'free child' to the world! The Pune trip helped you to decide that the escape from reality was only one aspect of your 'self' and that you did not wish to make that the centre of your life; you felt that it was sufficient to accept the 'reality' of the periods when you 'went away' and make space in your life when your mind commandeered a different self; but for you, the periods of freedom were too precious to be frittered away in wanting to understand the whys of it. Surely, life was too brief and needed to be lived with joy, happiness and, of course, laughter, you decided. And if medications helped. then so be it even if it distorted memory, time and the body.   You combined three very precious qualities: integrity, courage and tenderness. You never wavered from your idealism. You dealt with life's hand outs, the good, the bad and the ugly, with dignity, equanimity and of course, always, merriment. How you managed not to grow a single cynical bone, I have always wondered. During our Pune trip I urged, as I urge all my friends from the 'batch of late 1970s', to put down on paper our journeys in life, the idealism we shared, demons we faced, and the wisdom that is the hard earned fruit of our labour (and grey hair), written in pain but also full of the joie de vivre, celebrating life.  I do not know if you did. I hope you did. I was not a part of your everyday life; we had not met or communicated for the last 2-3 years. Yet, you are a part of my history and with your passing away, there is a hole in it. But then, dear Sushmita, all of us are also in the queue, only you got a bit impatient and jumped it. So, till we meet, here is a temporary goodbye on this your first birthday in a different life. Sathya 23 August 2010.