Gayatri Sundaram meets a man re-born, to render ‘rebirths’ to many without medicine or mass prayer. Descending to the level of the dead, he picks them up to born again and makes them laugh at their lost birth. Episodes of this lone crusader’s voyage through the  boozers and the losers….

We were asked to sit in a small room where chairs set in two parallel rows. Though strange to each other, our knee caps touched the others.  On the walls there were pictures of Jesus Christ and Lord Krishna. A traditional bronze lamp was kept lit under the pictures. Those who assembled there were quietly waiting for the session to start. Dr.Johns, took out a pack of betel and pan and began to chew it. We all watched him patiently. Suddenly with a burst of an utter rustic slang at a bearded man Dr.Johns started his routine session.

“So, you drink daily,na……?”

“yes”, replied the man as if never got embarrassed at this welcome.

“Have you ever kicked your wife?”

“No..”

“Shit…..you must give her one or two daily, you…. Or will anybody call you a man..?”

“no sir, I came here to stop my drinking habit”

“Why do you stop..You drink as much as you can..you are not disturbing your wife..so who gets puzzled over your drinking habit..this Angel..?” Dr.Johns’ voice was high when he pointed to a nun the sister of that man.

“No, never..I made anything wrong to her..”

“Then..”John’s voice again raised to an alarming note, “then is she a crack, to bring you here..you…”

Dr.Johns turned to a senior member of the team , “see, this is the one I told you in the morning..handle him tonight itself..okay..?”. the goon-like person nodded in consent. Rising from his seat he asked the bearded man to come with him. When the latter disagreed, Dr.Johns hurled a smutty slang at him and the bearded one walked along with the other like a lamb.

After five minutes he returned staggering. Foul smell of country arrack spread out everywhere. Falling into his chair, the man started to pour out with folded hands and paralyzed tongue. I n his broken lexis he repeated the word ’my son’ a hundred times.  Dr.Johns asked him in soft voice, “Where is your son?” “He is there, inside the auto..”, the man started to rise, but failed. “No..no..you sit there..” said Dr.Johns and asked another team member to call his son from the auto waiting outside.

Within seconds a 12 year old boy entered the room. He was a mentally challenged kid. Hugging his son to his bosom the father murmured, “this is my son..” When Dr.Johns asked his name he mewed gently. Taking a toffee out of his pocket Dr.Johns called him to his lap. The half-conscious father was in tears. “Tomorrow he will go to his residential school. I’ll be left alone, then..”

“Why don’t you try for a second child?” asked Dr.Johns.

“She (his wife) is not interested. She fears if the same thing would happen to the second one also..”

“See, medical technology is developing..a lot of ways are there to know about the embryo now” Before Dr.Johns  could complete the sentence, the nun interrupted, “never sir..it is sin”

“Sin..Damn your thoughts you angel..Be practical” Dr.Johnson was in temper. When the nun started to explain it as unethical as per their religion Dr.Johns asked her to clear out, furiously. The drunken man was staggering along the corridor to send off his son.

Boozers’  own country

It was an episode of the daily counseling session in the de-addiction centre Punarjani. Out of the many sessions of the totally different methodology of Dr.Johns’ counseling, it was the ‘welcoming part’ of a new entrant.

Keralites spent more money in liquor shops and bars than for their staple food, rice. They believe that only alcohol add rejoice to any occasion. For some of them it is a ‘show-off’ of manliness. Alcoholism has been laced with the Kerala outfit so deeply that a sudden or complete ban becomes something impossible. Giving due respect towards the largest revenue of the State, the seasonal ministries of Kerala often prostrate before the liquor mafia, even publically.

In the puzzling plurality of the State, ‘boozers’ stand apart with no classification in caste, creed or color. It is the only strata of the society where the multiple embarrassments make no bars.

Punarjani is a miniature ‘get away home’ for drunkards . People from the range of Officers in the First Grade to the daily wagers live together harmoniously inside the small hut of Punarjani and get a new birth alcoholic-free. The only but the greatest link that connects them is the intoxicated title –the drunkard.

Drinkers,  Drunkards and  Alcoholics

Punarjani gets ahead of the umpteen de-addiction centers across the cent-percent literate as well as cent-percent alcoholic State of Kerala– It is a rendezvous of drunkards.

But Dr.Johns prefers to call the drinkers and drunkards as ‘patients’ rather than mere ‘alcoholics’. “No one is bothered about alcoholism as a disease, but enjoys watching them as jokers and laugh at their absurdities. Nobody is a born-drunkard, it is the society which makes him so but looks down upon him as a contemptible sinner beyond pick up. At least those who want him to be alive should understand that it is a curable disease and treat him to get back into his life..”

Through this great realization, Punarjani operates as a unique de-addiction centre with totally different approaches both in therapy and counseling.

Punarjani style – unique and first-hand

It is a stunning fact to know that Punarjani has no gates!!! Punarjani  is situated at the picturesque hillock of Poomala Village, a scenic landscape, hardly 15 Kilometres away from Trichur city. Once landed there, we see the inmates chatting under the shady trees, alongside the little streams, upon the handle bars of the Poomala Dam. We see them wandering around sharing their jokes and grief strolling along the green meadows..no chains, no time-schedules. They are absolutely free.

“Freedom is the elixir of life especially for an alcoholic”, says Dr.Johnson, “because, he is a person who has used and misused freedom lavishly because of his ‘disease’. So I believe that whenever he is compelled to restrict freedom he will stop co-operating. It will only help generate a rebellious attitude in him.”

As narrated in the aforesaid episode a new entrant will be welcomed with enough of his ‘beloved item’. Intoxicated, he begins to strip off the formal outfits he has worn one by one and the original drunkard comes out with all his absurdities and worse mannerisms. He starts to ‘perform’ before the inmates, the ex-alcoholics, who get a chance to observe and realize how ridiculous and silly they were before.  “It will be a shocking experience to them,”, remarks Dr.Johns who likes to tag this psychological therapy a ‘live show’ which reveals the pathetic condition of addiction to the ‘once addicted’ and on witnessing  the gravity of the ‘disease’, they take a vow never to go back to an idiotic way of life again.

Counseling  via  sharing

“It is easy for me to stop this habit, whenever I need so.” In fact his inefficiency and lack of self –esteem that makes a drunkard boast like this. An alcoholic will be an egoist, a cunning and clever fellow. So ‘killing that ego’ is the first therapy done at Punarjani, comments Dr.Johns Mangalam.

Psychological counseling is mainly done by Dr.Johnn himself, but a group-counseling is also going on as an undercurrent in the community living here. All the inmates share their personal affairs among themselves .Not so late, they begin to understand that there is a streak of hope passing through this doomed darkness of depression and losses.

Every drunkard might have a bright past where they lived a life of dreams and prosperity. The flash backs of the hay-days when friends and sponsors feasted them get cleared gradually when they open up each other. At this point they search for the plot where they lost themselves…and ask unto them, even after gobbling costly liquors in vanity clubs, why our sorrows and self-abhorrence still persist?

“Using sophisticated languages to a drunkard stressing on the vices of alcoholism is like casting pearls before a swine.” Says Dr.Johns Mangalam. Once when a man becomes alcoholic, he gets specialized in a particular lingo with some unique words and phrases for communication. This does not matter how educated and professionally high he is. So, only something that expressed in his own language and style will be able to reach the depths of an addict. Thus Dr.Johns descends to the drunkard’s level to pick him up without threatening him in the name of Sin or Paradise.

Family-oriented

In Punarjani de-addiction centre you won’t see any medicine or mass prayer. So those who leave after the 21 day’s treatment in Punarjani walks out with a plus vigour he absorbed from the positive and recuperative ambience of Poomala hillock and Punarjani . While the patient is being imprisoned inside the alienated cells under the dozing tranquilizers in other de-addiction centers, inside Punarjani he is being feasted with his favorite food stuff and an understanding friends circle

Dr.Johns asks the patient’s mother or wife to stay with the patient at Punarjani. This is to do a family counseling as well as to get rid of the lonely-feel of the patient in the new ambience.  “An addict cannot withstand more than 20 days without alcohol “, claims Dr.Johns. “That is why we make them stay continuously for 21 days here. If he could complete the 21 continuous days without liquor there is hope on him. But even after that there should be a regular follow-up for a certain period to check him whether any ‘sponsors’ ‘gift’ him a bottle of ‘pleasure’. This is to be done by his wife or mother. So we give counseling to them also.”

The only medicine given to the patient in Punarjani is a ‘kashaayam’ made out of a number of herbal plants. It helps remove the toxic elements from his body. Even after the ‘discharging’ from Punarjani the patient is advised to have this medicine. Dr.Johns humorously narrates its reason. “Right here, the ‘kashayam’ is prepared by my wife. We get the herbal materials in bulk from the market. But once when the patient left here, it is his mother’s or wife’s duty to search for these rare herbs putting much effort and give him the kashayam in the stipulated time schedule. At this juncture the patient who now holds the true conscience comes to realize that how much his wife/mother suffers for him. This also will have a dramatic impact on this ex-alcoholic’s mind”.

Who  is  Dr.Johns

Make a call to 9747201015.

The ever dubious Malayali will ask him, “Whether there will be any change if I come over there?” Dr.Johns will request you to ask any ‘alumni’ of Punarjani and will add ‘it is better to use the soap than to listen to its ad campaigns’.

Perhaps, Dr.Johns is the most suitable person to start such a virtuous charitable trust like Punarjani, giving re-birth to tens of hundreds for the last five years.  Dr.Johns calls himself a hard-core drunkard. But it WAS.  When he narrates his life-sketch laced with his innate humor in particular Trichur slang, we would listen to him agape as if hearing an action-packed sentimental movie script.

Born to a teacher-couple, Johnson was also an immigrant to this Poomala village from Travancore. In his own words it was his father who had ‘handed over the baton of alcoholism’ to him. During the Graduation course in Philosophy, Johnson was equally competitive in howling into liquors along with Platonic and Aristotelian stances ‘to spend time with some fools’.  Often he had been picked up from the drainages half-conscious, but he managed to get the University first rank. In the PG times also the same situation prevailed and the same miracle happened – again a first rank for the M.A.!! During the Fellowship period at Calicut University campus also he had the same mania. Meanwhile, as for any maniacs in the villages, Johnson also had to entangle in a wed-lock ‘to be a good boy and pay the debts with the dowry’.

Even after the entry of Raji into his life, he has not changed. Meanwhile, he lost the temporary job of the college Lecturer and had to live upon his wife’s salary. Feeling inferior at this, he joined the Law College and took an LLB. But who comes to an advocate who dwells inside the bar?

Wounded over her husband’s plight, Raji resigned her job thinking her presence would have some positive effects on her husband. Even though, a teacher in Mathematics, her calculations went wrong,  Johnson was diving into alcohol more and more. Meanwhile the couple met an accident and Raji lost some of her internal organs. Still they were blessed with a son.

Lying inside the many de-addiction centers, under the trance of tranquilizers, Johnson began to think of ending his life. To get his wife and son something after his death, he made some plans to take an LIC policy. But his application was rejected on the grounds of his ‘unhealthy medical report’. His liver had been damaged irreparably. Thus he was being sent to another de-addiction centre where he made himself for a ‘comeback’.

Like birth, re-birth also is painful.

His wife had gone through the pools of pain and suffers a lot more for him to ‘born again’, than his mother had on his birth. Understanding all the dimensions of this fact, Johnson came back. After the ‘great realisation’, he thought of bringing back a lot of his friends, people known to him, rehabilitating them in the 3-roomed Punarjani, as the ‘wounded healer’. The healed ones became the healers for the new entrants and the system continues here.

Next..

“I have been going through a tough time financially since started Punarjani”, commented Dr.Johns. “Though a roller-coaster ride, I want to go on with this mission, even after me. Many are there to pour out to orphanages and Pain and Palliative missions, but no one is ready to support me, one who stands for the ‘boozers’. It is the mere ignorance of a solid truth.”

“People should be taught that alcoholism is a disease and alcohol never makes a relaxation agent or appetizer. Social awareness through campaigning from the lower strata will work out. “Dr.Johns is optimistic “the newly elected members are being trained in Local Administration at KILA. Let the awareness campaigns, taking this menace as an endemic also be included in their agenda, so that we can work out from the 3-tier Panchayath system”.

For the already ‘gone cases’ we need a lot of ‘Punarjanis’ with no gate and zero advice. It should call for the by-gone days of human-touch into the treatment beyond medicine and therapy. Dr. Johns, now the H.O.D. of Philosophy in Sree Keralavarma College Trichur is busy writing an autobiography. It will be an affidavit in scarlet letters for a segment who finds vanity and solace in alcohol.

When a wounded healer opens up with an ailing liver inside, banning him a normal life still, we see the miracle of something seems to be an ordinary becomes a big extra-ordinary!!!

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