15-June-2015
CAPTION : PATIENT OBSERVATIONS:C.P Rabindranath with his book 'The Lone Limbo'
in Madurai.
MADURAI : Not many doctors aspire to be a James Herriot. A Madurai psychiatrist
wants to be one, post-retirement. Having published his first novel, The Lone
Limbo, he is in the final lap of his second. The doctor-author, C. P.
Rabindranath , former Head, Department of Psychiatry, Madurai Medical College,
sitting in his clinic on Dhanappa Mudali Street, speaks to S. Annamalai about
his passion for writing and why he chose the novel genre to create awareness of
the predicament of people with mental illness .
Dr. Rabindranath, scion of the royal family of Kozhicode, wanted to study B.A.
(English Literature) after schooling in St. Joseph’s and St. Mary’s and
Pre-University Course in the American College, so that he could become a
writer. But his ex-serviceman father, who had settled in Madurai after
retirement, thought otherwise and made his son a psychiatrist. The yearning to
write rejuvenated in him when he was transferred to Tiruchi from Madurai in
2009. “I used to commute in the Vaigai Express to Tiruchi and utilised the
travel time to write the novel,” says Dr. Rabindranath. The novel is the “true
saga of an intelligent and emotionally stable computer professional [his
patient], who escapes from the throes of chronic insanity and extended
treatment due to care and affection showered by his family and friends.” The
novel is Dr. Rabindranath’s “attempt to lay bare the facts, and the truth about
the day-to-day life of a person who is mentally ill” in a narrative laced with
humour, thrills and a dose of crime.
Who inspired the novel? “My patients and their care givers. The community is
not congenial to people with mental illness. It should be more empathetic and
able to tolerate the patients better. We should give the patients a chance to
become normal instead of making fun of them. The family dynamics is an
important factor in curing mental illness.” He attributes the disintegration of
joint family system as the reason for the plight of people with mental illness.
He hopes that his maiden sally into creative writing will be an eye-opener for
the society. The Epilogue, which carries the narrative of the protagonist
Arvin, as a response to the novel, says, “My rehabilitation …was by and large
carried out by the community around me — consisting of my family, friends and
the village folk…It should be a mass movement by every sane individual and not
by caretakers and professional managers of the illness alone.”
Of alcohol, drugs
Speaking beyond the novel, Dr. Rabindranath expresses concern over the
increasing trend of alcoholism and drug addiction. “Addiction to alcohol and
drugs predisposes a person to and exaggerates already existing genetic
predilection for mental illness.”
http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/tamil-nadu/how-a-techie-flees-away-from-insanity/article7316714.ece
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