No Signal

Psychology is a subject that I find immensely fascinating and the amount of reading I’ve done on personality disorders is testament to that. So last Sunday, when I caught a glimpse of the Hindi film ‘Bhool Bhulaiyaa’ my mother was watching on television, I couldn’t help but forget about my chores and sit down on the recliner to see how the story progressed. What made it interesting was the subject being dealt with – Dissociative Identity Disorder – and the pace with which the plot moved forward, which was neither too slow nor confusingly rapid.

I first heard about this disorder through Sidney Sheldon’s book, ‘Tell Me Your Dreams’ (though it was then called Multiple Personality Disorder) and the impact it had on my mind was so great that when an opportunity to write a story for a college assignment arose in 2005, this is what I came up with:

Rotting garbage fumes tickled my nostrils. I woke up with the rest of Bangalore, as people went about doing their yoga and multiple rounds of the nearby park. It was 7 O’ Clock in the morning and to my surprise, a plastic bag full of kitchen waste had been my pillow all night. I was in a garbage dumpster in the heart of the city.

I reluctantly shook off the trash and got up to get out of the dumpster. There was something about this huge can that was annoyingly comforting. I had no idea how I got here in the first place, but it had happened before and was likely to happen again. I was getting used to waking up in the most unexpected places, always accompanied by long gaps of memory loss. The last time it had happened, I had woken up a month after I had last remembered being conscious and I don’t know what may have happened in the thirty days that had passed.

My name is Ashok Gowda and I’m an artist by profession. I was born and raised in the city of Bangalore, amidst lush greenery and a very relaxed pace of life. So relaxed that I would always shudder at the thought of having to live in a place where life is a constant rush.

In my thirty-one years of living on earth, I had done it all – booze, drugs, sex, gangs, everything. At age 10, I nearly killed my abusive father after he returned home drunk and tried forcing me into an act that robbed him of any respect I ever had for him. He was a homosexual paedophile. I ran away from home that night never to see my father again.

It was around then that these episodes of lapses in memory began. I would wake up to find myself in weird places with strangers who behaved as if they knew me really well. I would find my way back to Atul’s house where I’d discover that it had been days since he or his family had last seen me. Atul is the childhood friend who had convinced his family to take me in after I ran away from home. Years passed by and they got used to me disappearing for days on end without ever questioning my whereabouts.

The dumpster left behind, I quickened my pace. The aroma of freshly brewed coffee wafting from a café nearby was tempting. Alas, I had no money. I walked to a park nearby and stopped to catch my breath for a while. A stone bench provided the necessary resting spot. I looked around and a father-son duo caught my eye. My eyes welled up and I couldn’t control the tears. Why hadn’t I had a father who loved and cared for me? All he ever did was drink and beat me or use me as a sexual toy for his sick perversions. I hate him! I hate him! I buried my head in my hands as my whole body shook from the sorrow caused by painful childhood memories. Then, in a flash I blacked out.

I hate it when Ashok has these emotional outbursts; it brings out the worst in me. I need a drink right now or I’ll kill someone. That’s right, my rage is uncontrollable. I should have just killed that bastard of a father that night when I had the chance to. The night I was born.

I’m twenty-one years old. I came into existence as a result of Ashok’s suppressed emotions having exploded in a fit of rage. I share the same body as him. My name is Madhur. I am his alter ego.