In a letter, an asylum inmate reviews the events of the year gone by, perhaps making more sense out of it than any of us has been able to
Dear Razia,
I WRITE from the world of high-speed electronic gadgetry and insane ideas. No, it is not the United States of America, but the mental bedlam where you off-loaded me in the glum winter of 2001.
My stay in this wilderness is now one year long and I feel like a born again lunatic. During this period, your visits were consigned to my dreams only. I think you have found some brawny fellow to give you marital company. Brains these days come with no warranty as it turned out in my case. Therefore, reposing trust in brawns makes a lot of sense.
The purpose of writing this letter is not to woo you back but to boo you away — to make you aware that my mental health, after several watts of current and painful therapy, has shown no signs of improvement so you should not bother having any thought of coming back to me. In fact, the doctor was overheard confessing that I came here with mania but now, I have developed symptoms of anti-social personality disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder and what is more, even schizophrenia. At least, one thing positive has come out of this, I can claim to possess a ‘beautiful mind.’
My life is filled with fits and starts. During the fits, I remain focused on tearing my clothes and that of the staff, but in normal times the urges to write take over. Last month, one of the fellow patients told me that a competition was being held in the hospital for writing a critique on a TV play. The winner was supposed to be given a booker prize consisting of a book titled World Cup Mania.
I decided to participate in order to be able to donate the prize to my favourite nurse who is a cricket freak. I selected a long play that I have been watching on TV. It has been running continuously for the last one year on all the news channels. I chose my own title for the play: Year 2002 — the Mayhem. Here is what I wrote.
“The play’s central theme is mayhem, massacre and more of these two. It tells the tale of a violent world where killing innocent people has become the international past time. Hunters now prey on people with beards, along with animals wherever they can find them. A huge cast of extras is shown to be killed, maimed or blown apart in this epic battle of evil vs not-so-evil. I do not know what rating the Americans assigned to the play, but it deserved GPG 13 (Grand Parental Guidance 13) for the sheer violence and perversity.
If my memory serves me right (which is rare these days), the play is a sequel to an earlier play titled Year 2001 — the Two Towers. The opening scene lasts for about two months when forces of dark lord George W. Bush annihilate an already annihilated country called Afghanistan. Bombs are raining down, missiles are flying about. The gruesome nature of the scenes are unabashedly macabre and leaves Saving Private Ryan’s opening (Normandy landings) far behind in naked cruelty. The battle scenes appear very real, and death and destruction is depicted in a most horrifying manner. Full marks to the special effects team.
The dark lord is played by George W. Bush whose sole claim to fame is that his father was also a comedian who starred in the 1994 flop, Bush and the Gulf Oil Crusade. It goes to the credit of the son that following his father’s footsteps, he landed this vital role despite being a comedian, playing the fool all his life. As dark lord Bush, he invites guffaws instead of fear. Despite his slovenly mannerism and comic face, he is shown as ruthless when it comes to bloodletting like Batman’s joker.
In the play, he is portrayed to be suffering from a personality disorder which our doctors call psychopathic personality disorder — a fact to which he is oblivious. To offset the effect of his intense role, he will require more than psychotherapy in his real life. Electro-convulsive treatment may cure him. There will be few seizures and the actor will never play dark roles in future. The world may not have got their new James Bond yet after Pierce Brosnan, but Mike Myers’ replacement as Austin Powers will be available after these electric shocks.
As I stated, the play is a killing bonanza. If it is not Afghanistan, it is Gujarat. Here, the Indian Muslims who played as hapless victims performed admirably, especially as those who got burnt alive in their houses. The director for this segment, Mr Modi, has masterfully depicted the killings by Hindu mobs.
The death scenes are interspersed with smaller violence sequences performed by suicide bombers. It is shown that the world is in the grip of suicide bombing. Everyday when I switched on the T.V, the play’s daily episode started with a suicide bombing. If, in reality, these things caught on, the world will become one big madhouse. It will become impossible to tell when the person with whom you are exchanging pleasantries blows up.
The dark lord has a strong ally in the Middle Earth. I think he is called Aerial Sharon in the play. Now he is very aptly cast. He is a brutal murderer whose bloodlust is interminable. He is a true rogue who kills for pleasure. His fleet of vehicles include mostly bulldozers. He appears more of a contractor than a PM. The play shows plenty of bulldozed houses over the length of the play. It is good that it was not real too, otherwise the world would have been torn asunder by now.
As is pretty evident, the play has little dialogue and the sound is dominated by gun and rocket fires, and shrieks of panic and despair of Muslim women and children. The noticeable part of the play is that the heroes are conspicuous by their absence and villains have a field day as if they have come to a party. I am told that there is also no hero in Part 3 of the trilogy to be released in 2003. A play without a hero is difficult to digest and a play without a heroine is completely unbearable. Only a mad man can have a taste for it. That explains why I sat through it and it confirms my privileged status of a maniac.
The evil genius in the dark lord then cooks up a plan to attack another weak nation which also happens to be a Muslim country. I think war is part of his digestive system. A significant portion of the play shows how the war is planned on a hapless nation, and the satraps of the dark lord pretend to being convinced as if they need any convincing at all.
The later part of the play is the saving grace which prevents it from being a complete failed production. The focus moves to an Islamic country which I believe is Pakistan. It is also a cringing ally of the dark lord. The play gives way to some lighter moments as this country goes to the polls. Keeping up the tradition, the polls are contested by charlatans and crooks who, by changing loyalties, become paragons and pillars of democracy. All is forgiven, including their past defaults and criminal conduct. The roles of the politicians are played by some heavyweight comedians who cannot even embrace each other due to their oversized bellies. The bellies serve the purpose of camel hump and allow them to carry through the arduous month of Ramazan, when time appears to stand still.
The splintered Stone Age forces stage a resurgence after uniting on a one-point agenda — the subjugation of female specie, as they consider it as root of all evil. I beg to differ slightly, I think it is a ‘necessary’ evil. The obsession with women and excessive eating define their life pattern. Take women out and their politics will crumble. The three main parties boast of some big time turncoats. These larger-than-life characters are shown in various Iftar parties, which explains their boundless obesity.
This time it has been a truly heavy mandate. The clerics are heavier with the added burden of flowing beards and colourful dyes applied on them. The king is sanguine that Iftaris overload by the elected MP would result in heavy expiries due to cardiac arrests. This does not materialize. However, he is successful in his backup plan of purchasing some lightweight lame MPs. They are immediately put on the same diet as the clerics, which made buffaloes and humans appear a related race.
The performances are pretty boring and script is sickeningly repetitive. There is some suspense towards the middle when the clerics announce their own PM candidate, which would have caused the world to leap and pounce on this country but the plan fizzles out. I think the director ran out of budget to show another carnage. The end is also very predictable, where the king has a walk in the park and installs his puppets as rulers. This was deja vu as I felt I have seen it all before.”
So dear Razia, would you believe that the jury, consisting of the sweeper, a sister and the oldest inmate of the hospital, awarded me the prize on the above review. It is a big honour to win such a prestigious award. Frankly, the play taught me one thing — the world can easily turn into a big mental asylum if even half of the fiction depicted in the play becomes a reality. Madness will then be out there, not here at the hospital.
If that happens, I and the other inmates will no longer be called maniacs in relatives terms. The true lunatics will be fellows like Bush, Modi and Sharon, the principal characters of the play, Year 2002 — the Mayhem. As I said before electro-convulsive treatment will become mandatory to infuse some sanity in them.
In a letter, an asylum inmate reviews the events of the year gone by, perhaps making more sense out of it than any of us has been able to 
