This episode under wraps which I now choose to blow the cover of revolves around a HERO, not from a flick though, but a common herd that you push your way through every day – any Tom, Dick and Harry. This cool, saintly person whose first name is Tyagi has visceral dislike (so, I reckon) of letting anyone in on things he’s buried in his chest. He’d rather take them to his grave than to whisper a word about it. You dig into it and you get his lips creased into a serene smile that refuses to go. Hardly a word or two escape his lips followed by a chuckle that runs the digger out of steam.

I ‘think’ I know this person, for I’ve been the sole witness of all that he went through all that made him into the enigmatic thing that he is now. And yet I admit that I know him on the surface and not below it because if he exists below the surface, there is no way I can plumb him.

Should I or shouldn’t I talk about him and give you a window on his personality? I asked for his kind permission. ‘Nothing to talk about!’ his spontaneous tepid response. “Tyagi, why are you so averse to the idea of sharing your experience  with people that, who knows, holds the key to solving or at least tackling mental health problems that is giving others hell?”  To this, he’d say few words with a touch of smile keeping a civil tongue in his head, “No use.  No one is there to take it. You don’t cast pearl before a swine. You want to find a solution to a problem. You are a problem. The problem is in Nepal and you are rooting for solution in Tibet.” And he’d chuckle at it.

“May be, just maybe, it comes as a god-send for someone you don’t have a faintest idea about”, I’d protest but to no avail. He’d give what you call a cherubic smile twirling his moustache, caressing his stubbly beard.

Last week, I made a flying visit to him. He lives at a stone throw from my place. Over a mug of tea, I told him I was goanna spill the beans. Tyagi knows it that I was the one and the only person breathing under the sky who he had stumbled into while groping his way through the dark tunnel of horror over the last 4 or 5 years. On one or two occasion I had held candle to him when the going had gotten tough.

“No use. You make a fool of yourself. There is no solution because there is no problem. The solution breeds the problem”, Tyagi had said.

In the ORDER (Social and Psychological) that we human live and in the overall scheme of things, it takes to beat your brain out and yet you are left struggling to figure this man out. His family of four, wife, son and daughter, appears to be the happiest creatures beyond measure on planet earth with the exception of Tyagi who is nothing if not enigmatic. Five years back in time, the four humans that together made his family living under ones roof were having the worst of all worlds. They were caught in a vicious cycle of mental and emotional suffering from where an escape is simply unimaginable. To a person of my intelligence, I simply can’t imagine if anyone could survive a fate worse than death with odds heavily against them and yet they managed to bounce back. They made it. Unbelievable! Smiles returned to their lips and everyone is now having a whale of a time, as though the misery and torment of the dreadful 4/5 years was a nightmare which they have struck out of their memory.

How it all came about! You can’t guess it right, I can bet that. For someone born and brought up in the Western values and Western way of life, he/she’d turn it down branding it as downright rubbish. For many others living in this part of the world, they wouldn’t appreciate it nor would they out-rightly reject the possibility of it. For a rare few who happened to have a glimpse of life below the surface, they’d give a smiling nod to it.

Now, I stop beating about the bush to avoid getting on your nerves, and take the liberty of talking about Tyagi’s family of four living under one roof, all by themselves, having no one to fall back on.  I have known this family for quite some time. Tyagi has been the sole breadwinner to provide for the family. He never had a steady job, made his living doing odd jobs or anything up for grabs. The opportunity to make money kept coming along to him, that’s because he’s been a smart guy, knew how to turn the tide when the going gets tough. He’d make money enough to stay afloat. Besides, he had some ancestral property in the village which provided a safety net. His son and daughter went to College and his wife took care of household chores.

It is safe to describe Tyagi as a hedonist as far as the meaning of the word go. He’d go for and gratify every pleasure of senses – wine, women, and all the sins of the flesh. Some called him a womanizer. He was a well-read fellow. He had devoured everything he could lay his hand on. No work of fame, East or West, had escaped his eyes. One couldn’t reason him out no matter what topic of conversation they had gotten into with him. He’d go to any extreme to put things to right. Stubborn as mule and unbending as steel, Tyagi wouldn’t admit defeat even if that cost his limb and life. So, he was.

Tragedy first struck the family when his son still at College got into habit of smoking grass and was easily led to doing drugs until he suffered ‘Insight Loss’ – a neurotic or psychotic problem. That came as a first blow. His son began to behave weirdly. One moment he’d become Buddha, next moment he’d suffer paranoid delusions. He’d call Hitler a messiah and Buddha a mendicant friar. Psychiatrist put him on drugs, but the tricky business was to get the drug down his throat. He wouldn’t take it, not for anything. One had to try every trick in the book to get the drug into his blood. As no one in the family could tackle the boy, it fell to him to tough himself out. That made enormous demand on him. He had to forgo everything including the job offers that were far from coming to him thick and fast. There’s nothing else for it but to take it upon himself to do whatever it takes to restore the boy’s usual happy self. Tyagi would always be on his tail and keep round-the-clock vigil on the boy waiting for a chance to get the drug into his body so that this nocturnal creature could get some sleep.  He was so much taken up with the boy that he failed to notice that his non-smoker wife had taken to smoking. She’d take pull at cigarettes to fight her strains that the sight of her son gave her. Once or twice, she complained of feeling discomfort blamed at some strange phenomenon issuing from her head and spiraling down her back, and it happened recurrently. That gave her anguish. Tyagi was only too occupied with the boy that he hardly took note of her suffering.

In about 10 weeks, Tyagi’s son was on road to recovery. One wintry morning, (The month was January, the day Sunday) he woke up in the foggy morning only to find that his wife was not in the bed, something unusual for her. Soon he found her whereabouts. The woman who could hardly muster any energy into worshipping gods was deep in an elaborate Pooja. Her Pooja (god-worshiping) lasted for 6 hours. At around 11 AM, the family sat at table for lunch. Tyagi had cooked the meal – Chicken, rice, dal and green vegetable. His wife had been off meat for about a decade. As everyone dug into their plates, she warned them against leaving any left-overs. She said that the left-overs would go to the devil and he’d send us untold misery. Then, she picked the leftover bones off other’s plate and began munching on it. Soon she polished off all leftover bones. At about noon, she left home promising to get back in an hour or so.  She didn’t get back until midnight. Tyagi was driven from pillar to post before he stumbled across this woman in the crematory site on the bank of a river, hovering around a flaming pyre, ecstatic, zealot, shiny glow on her face, hurling curses at the corpse being consumed by rattling fire.

She was diagnosed schizophrenic, put on drugs.

He decided to put his son showing signs of rapid recovery away from family in the custody of a friend of his.  He kept his son’s mental health problem back from him. Now, he concentrated all his effort on restoring mental health of his wife. His wife began to have palpitations, panic attacks, auditory sensations, and hallucinations. She planned at least 5 suicides, executed one, and yet fell short of final curtain. She had slashed her wrist with a razor, cutting maiden nerve and tendons at the eerie silence of night while Tyagi was dead to the world. According to Tyagi, he had a vision that woke him up, bucket of blood had drained out of her, though. It took 6 hour long surgery to repair her slashed wrist. While he was still nursing his wife back to health, he got a call from his friend who informed him that his son had suffered relapse.

It’d take an hour of air travel to get to his son. Tyagi had no time to think but act. He dashed to his daughter’s room to tell her to take care of her mother as he’d go and bring his son back. To his dismay, he discovered his daughter in a somber mood, downcast, looking unseeingly at the wobbly leg of her chair, tears rolling down her eyes, sitting quiet like a statue. Fearing she might slip into depression anytime, he rang me up and sought my help.  He asked me to take his daughter a long ride, give meat and drink to her, talk only about roses and not thorns, and keep him calling. This is where he had stumbled into me while groping his way through the tunnel of horror.

Today, his son is in a white color job, paid well. His daughter did her Masters in sociology and psychology and works with an IT company. His wife is an early riser, do yoga, chant mantra, go on a morning walk, come back, cook food, watch television, read books and meet friends. She’s now a happy-go-lucky sort of woman.

The family is happier by far except Tyagi who is entirely a different man. He’s neither happy nor sad. He doesn’t read, doesn’t watch TV, doesn’t talk to people, and doesn’t call on anyone, all by oneself and all to oneself.  Not a trace of hedonism in him, nor is he religious or spiritualist. He’s no belief, no philosophy, no theosophy, no ontology, no teleology, nothing. He doesn’t preach, doesn’t teach, doesn’t get angry, doesn’t get emotional, doesn’t get snarky, and doesn’t get sad, nothing.

When someone knock a saucer flying off table and smashing on floor, he wouldn’t say a word, quietly sweep the pieces off floor, and put them into a trash bin. Anyone in the family ask for money, he wouldn’t demand a reason, just give it away. He doesn’t tell them what to do and what not to do, nor does he tell them what is wrong and what is right. Anyone in the family ask him to do a thing, he’d acquiesce and do it gladly.

He discharges his familial duty splendidly. He sees to it that there is no crisis or shortage of anything at home. He barely gives any room for anyone to complain. He works, makes money and provide for the family. His own existence is frugal. He’s no need, no wishes. To me, his life doesn’t seem to have any meaning.

“Is there no purpose of living?” I often ask him this question. To this he answers, “Why does this word “purpose” enter your head? Can’t you leave your head empty?”

“But, you don’t live as others live!” I counter him. “I eat, shit, f**k and sleep. Does anyone do anything else?” he asks.   “You are not enjoying your life, are you?” I ask him. To this he responds, “I don’t know what that word ‘enjoyment’ means to you. It doesn’t mean anything to me. I gratify every demand of this body. I see to it that mind doesn’t interfere with body. Body can do no wrong. It is the mind that is source of all trouble.”

I don’t really understand him. He’s there quiet, smiling, playing with cats or watering plants while his family is going with all guns blazing.