non compos mentis
Great commotion ensued when a man in his sixties collapsed on the railway platform, with sudden chest pain. Confused crowd surrounded him, and worsened the situation.
A stranger rushed in, and took charge of the situation; he revived the old man with chest massage; handed over him to the paramedics who arrived by this time; and simply disappeared, as though to escape notice.
Always fascinated by queer guys, i followed him. There he sat on a bench, a middle-aged pauper in rags, eating bananas with child-like indifference to the surroundings.
“Yes please..?” said he, as he noticed me.
“That gentleman..?”
“Don’t worry. He should be ok..must have been thrombolyzed by now. I know the cardiologist there, she is. . .”
“How do you know? I mean. . .”
“Well, i am a physician by qualifications.’
“But you don’t look like a doc?”
“If you care to know, i had a fairly settled practice, and a family too. Of course now i have given up both.”
“Why, if i may ask?”
“Well, one fine day i walked in my home to find my wife having good time with some god-knows-who. My only reaction was a reflex ‘oops!’, and next, i left our room- I mean their room, the house, and the town for good. People say i lost my mind; actually, i let the poor thing loose from the family, professional, and social bridle. It never belonged to any of these; in fact, it never belonged even to me!”
“Didn’t you practice after that?”
“I didn’t care as much to renew my registration.”
“But why should you punish yourself for somebody else’s infidelity?” I asked, not without some hesitation.
“Let’s leave that fidelity thing alone. Each one walks in her or his own light. She too did so, and set me free. Judgement would have made me a misanthrope, which i hope, I am not.”
“Where do you stay? Would mind, if i visit your place?” I changed the unhappy topic.
“Mind, i won’t; whatever happens is fine with me. But i don’t think you would exactly like to visit my dwelling, though. I stay in one of those abandoned dilapidated structures, you find along the railway track.”
“What?” i exclaimed, ”that’s hardly safe?’
“Right. The place is infested with venomous snakes” he said in a matter-of-factly manner.
“You know, it’s fun living with death lurking around” he continued, “you learn to be grateful for every moment of life! You never know, the next movement, the next step could be the end of it.”
“Are you real, or a fiction?” i asked, almost shuddering.
“All life is fiction, my friend, and we, floating phantoms! Each of us seizes a fiction, and builds his or her illusion of reality around it. Hey, what’s that?’ He pointed at the rail track.
“A dead rat..?”
“What else?”
“Rotting..”
“What else?”
“Stinking..”
“And life teeming there?”
“Life?”
“Subtle, microscopic expressions of life? Death of the gross, and birth of the fine? The rot, the stink, the grief and the loss: all human terms for human perceptions and preferences, aren’t they? Death, then, is just fiction.”
“If death is such fiction, why did you revive that dying man?”
“Herd instinct of self preservation, which, in human terms, we call humanity.”
“Is humanity a fiction too?”
“In absolute terms, yes; at our plane of existence, perhaps no.
“What about human character?”
“Once the bureaucracy required me to procure a character certificate from the local corporator or MLA; that day onwards i got disgusted with the character stuff.”
“And life too is a fiction?”
“Yes, as long as one talks about it. Words are too gross a medium to express something that transcends the subtlest expression.”
“Are you evading the question?”
“Consciously, no; subconsciously, i don’t know.”
“Perhaps, someone in the past has found out better answers?”
“That hardly helps me.”
“Gurus and scriptures?”
“..our best friends initially, but eventually, our worst enemies.”
“Sir, you seem to be a good man, but you sound anarchist, if i may say so.” i ventured to say.
“You may as well call me insane.”
“Well?”
“Sanity is the set of illusions shared by the majority: insanity is just being a bit beyond the commonplace.
“Isn’t insanity something odd, lonely, miserable, sort of?”
“The sane would never know. Once i saw a fellow among beggars near a place of worship. As i roamed around, and beggars cried to me, his carefree voice rang high above the melee- “Hey fools! Why beg of the beggars? All are beggars, begging the deity for petty worldly things! No better than us! Ha! Ha! Ha!” Perhaps, the madman was wiser and merrier than all of us, beggars or otherwise, at his own plane?
“A railway platform is the best place to observe the world around, incognito. Once i saw an elderly emaciated eunuch rummaging for eatables along the dirty rail track. Revolted and moved at once, i offered him a few biscuits i had. And what does the he do? He hails all the stray dogs on the platform, and feeds them one by one- as a mother feeds her little children, caressing their wounds, tenderly removing ticks, – and the rascals too enjoying the pampering! Do i call the fellow miserable?
“And then, there used to be a couple that went begging around the town, where i spent my childhood, Both were short, dark, bloated with dropsy, and blind. One leaned on the other, and the other on a walking stick, groping in the eternal darkness. Every morning i heard their cry:
“Whosoever gives is the God..
For, God’s the only Giver,”
“All these eunuchs, beggars, madmen, paupers lived at the fringes of the sane society, and its laws. They all were the non compos mentis, not sound of mind, as the law puts it. They had no identity. The world could not care less if they lived or died...“I don’t know where i stand in this sanity spectrum, but life has taught me this: never compare, for all ‘standard’ is fiction; never theorize, for all theories are blinkers. And this: whatever is strange to my comprehension is not necessarily nasty or evil. Evil is goodness, feeling insecure; evil is the crust, and goodness is the core."
Great commotion ensued when a man in his sixties collapsed on the railway platform, with sudden chest pain. Confused crowd surrounded him, and worsened the situation.
A stranger rushed in, and took charge of the situation; he revived the old man with chest massage; handed over him to the paramedics who arrived by this time; and simply disappeared, as though to escape notice.
Always fascinated by queer guys, i followed him. There he sat on a bench, a middle-aged pauper in rags, eating bananas with child-like indifference to the surroundings.
“Yes please..?” said he, as he noticed me.
“That gentleman..?”
“Don’t worry. He should be ok..must have been thrombolyzed by now. I know the cardiologist there, she is. . .”
“How do you know? I mean. . .”
“Well, i am a physician by qualifications.’
“But you don’t look like a doc?”
“If you care to know, i had a fairly settled practice, and a family too. Of course now i have given up both.”
“Why, if i may ask?”
“Well, one fine day i walked in my home to find my wife having good time with some god-knows-who. My only reaction was a reflex ‘oops!’, and next, i left our room- I mean their room, the house, and the town for good. People say i lost my mind; actually, i let the poor thing loose from the family, professional, and social bridle. It never belonged to any of these; in fact, it never belonged even to me!”
“Didn’t you practice after that?”
“I didn’t care as much to renew my registration.”
“But why should you punish yourself for somebody else’s infidelity?” I asked, not without some hesitation.
“Let’s leave that fidelity thing alone. Each one walks in her or his own light. She too did so, and set me free. Judgement would have made me a misanthrope, which i hope, I am not.”
“Where do you stay? Would mind, if i visit your place?” I changed the unhappy topic.
“Mind, i won’t; whatever happens is fine with me. But i don’t think you would exactly like to visit my dwelling, though. I stay in one of those abandoned dilapidated structures, you find along the railway track.”
“What?” i exclaimed, ”that’s hardly safe?’
“Right. The place is infested with venomous snakes” he said in a matter-of-factly manner.
“You know, it’s fun living with death lurking around” he continued, “you learn to be grateful for every moment of life! You never know, the next movement, the next step could be the end of it.”
“Are you real, or a fiction?” i asked, almost shuddering.
“All life is fiction, my friend, and we, floating phantoms! Each of us seizes a fiction, and builds his or her illusion of reality around it. Hey, what’s that?’ He pointed at the rail track.
“A dead rat..?”
“What else?”
“Rotting..”
“What else?”
“Stinking..”
“And life teeming there?”
“Life?”
“Subtle, microscopic expressions of life? Death of the gross, and birth of the fine? The rot, the stink, the grief and the loss: all human terms for human perceptions and preferences, aren’t they? Death, then, is just fiction.”
“If death is such fiction, why did you revive that dying man?”
“Herd instinct of self preservation, which, in human terms, we call humanity.”
“Is humanity a fiction too?”
“In absolute terms, yes; at our plane of existence, perhaps no.
“What about human character?”
“Once the bureaucracy required me to procure a character certificate from the local corporator or MLA; that day onwards i got disgusted with the character stuff.”
“And life too is a fiction?”
“Yes, as long as one talks about it. Words are too gross a medium to express something that transcends the subtlest expression.”
“Are you evading the question?”
“Consciously, no; subconsciously, i don’t know.”
“Perhaps, someone in the past has found out better answers?”
“That hardly helps me.”
“Gurus and scriptures?”
“..our best friends initially, but eventually, our worst enemies.”
“Sir, you seem to be a good man, but you sound anarchist, if i may say so.” i ventured to say.
“You may as well call me insane.”
“Well?”
“Sanity is the set of illusions shared by the majority: insanity is just being a bit beyond the commonplace.
“Isn’t insanity something odd, lonely, miserable, sort of?”
“The sane would never know. Once i saw a fellow among beggars near a place of worship. As i roamed around, and beggars cried to me, his carefree voice rang high above the melee- “Hey fools! Why beg of the beggars? All are beggars, begging the deity for petty worldly things! No better than us! Ha! Ha! Ha!” Perhaps, the madman was wiser and merrier than all of us, beggars or otherwise, at his own plane?
“A railway platform is the best place to observe the world around, incognito. Once i saw an elderly emaciated eunuch rummaging for eatables along the dirty rail track. Revolted and moved at once, i offered him a few biscuits i had. And what does the he do? He hails all the stray dogs on the platform, and feeds them one by one- as a mother feeds her little children, caressing their wounds, tenderly removing ticks, – and the rascals too enjoying the pampering! Do i call the fellow miserable?
“And then, there used to be a couple that went begging around the town, where i spent my childhood, Both were short, dark, bloated with dropsy, and blind. One leaned on the other, and the other on a walking stick, groping in the eternal darkness. Every morning i heard their cry:
“Whosoever gives is the God..
For, God’s the only Giver,”
“All these eunuchs, beggars, madmen, paupers lived at the fringes of the sane society, and its laws. They all were the non compos mentis, not sound of mind, as the law puts it. They had no identity. The world could not care less if they lived or died...“I don’t know where i stand in this sanity spectrum, but life has taught me this: never compare, for all ‘standard’ is fiction; never theorize, for all theories are blinkers. And this: whatever is strange to my comprehension is not necessarily nasty or evil. Evil is goodness, feeling insecure; evil is the crust, and goodness is the core."
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