As I have written in one of my earlier blogs that I spent my childhood in Kanke, Ranchi.
About Me
This place has a large Mental Asylum established by the British. Even for the lunatics, the British applied the 'divide and rule' policy. Hence there were two huge Mental Hospitals here called the 'Indian Mental Hospital' and the 'European Mental Hospital'.
These hospitals have very high walls (like prison walls).
*An old photo of the Mental Hospital, Kanke.
For my pre-nursery I was sent to a school called Tiny-Tots. This school was established by the wives of the doctors/staff of the Mental Hospital and mostly their children came to this school. Since we lived in close vicinity, I was also enrolled here. I think I went to this school for less than a year till my father was posted in Bhubaneswar and we went there.
In this school some of the teachers were patients of the mental hospital !! I remember one in particular, he was a old British called 'Papa Dika'. He must be in his late sixties or early seventies. Perhaps he was in the mental asylum from pre-independence and after independence his relatives in India went back to England. Now he was absolutely fine and showed no sign of madness, but the poor fellow had no relatives to take him in, so he stayed in the Hospital. All the kids in the school loved him. He was a lot of fun. I remember sometimes he would give us apples. He would also play Cricket with us. He would make ball from paper, rolling it into a round shape and then tying it with strings.
Then there was another teacher, Mrs Bhalla. She came to the school accompanied by matrons. She was undergoing treatment and we heard she was periodically given 'shock' treatment. But for a majority of the time she was ok and hence she was allowed to teach in the school. After the class the matrons would take her back to the hospital.
Society always makes fun of people who are 'mentally challenged' but you need to see them from close quarters to understand the struggle they go through.
I have very fond memories of 'Tiny Tots' and the teachers from the Mental Hospital................
Some very famous people were inmates of Kanke Mental Hospital, among them the Urdu poet Majaaz Lucknavi and Qazi Nazrul Islam (Poet Laureate of Bangladesh). Also the mathmatics genius Vashishth Narayan Singh.
The line between sanity and insanity is very thin and all of us (supposedly sane people) do cross this line at times in life.............
* There are many other interesting stories about our encounters with the inmates of the mental hospital in Kanke.....perhaps for another blog.............
About Me
This place has a large Mental Asylum established by the British. Even for the lunatics, the British applied the 'divide and rule' policy. Hence there were two huge Mental Hospitals here called the 'Indian Mental Hospital' and the 'European Mental Hospital'.
These hospitals have very high walls (like prison walls).
For my pre-nursery I was sent to a school called Tiny-Tots. This school was established by the wives of the doctors/staff of the Mental Hospital and mostly their children came to this school. Since we lived in close vicinity, I was also enrolled here. I think I went to this school for less than a year till my father was posted in Bhubaneswar and we went there.
In this school some of the teachers were patients of the mental hospital !! I remember one in particular, he was a old British called 'Papa Dika'. He must be in his late sixties or early seventies. Perhaps he was in the mental asylum from pre-independence and after independence his relatives in India went back to England. Now he was absolutely fine and showed no sign of madness, but the poor fellow had no relatives to take him in, so he stayed in the Hospital. All the kids in the school loved him. He was a lot of fun. I remember sometimes he would give us apples. He would also play Cricket with us. He would make ball from paper, rolling it into a round shape and then tying it with strings.
Then there was another teacher, Mrs Bhalla. She came to the school accompanied by matrons. She was undergoing treatment and we heard she was periodically given 'shock' treatment. But for a majority of the time she was ok and hence she was allowed to teach in the school. After the class the matrons would take her back to the hospital.
Society always makes fun of people who are 'mentally challenged' but you need to see them from close quarters to understand the struggle they go through.
I have very fond memories of 'Tiny Tots' and the teachers from the Mental Hospital................
Some very famous people were inmates of Kanke Mental Hospital, among them the Urdu poet Majaaz Lucknavi and Qazi Nazrul Islam (Poet Laureate of Bangladesh). Also the mathmatics genius Vashishth Narayan Singh.
The line between sanity and insanity is very thin and all of us (supposedly sane people) do cross this line at times in life.............
* There are many other interesting stories about our encounters with the inmates of the mental hospital in Kanke.....perhaps for another blog.............
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