50 Naked Men | Harison Xavier

A memory I got from a care home for mentally challenged people 

2010-2011

One Sunday, me and my friends sitting at our Sunday school class room talking about how hard have life been in the past 2 years and how hard it is going to be as we are approaching our higher secondary exams and we have to study twice harder as our future depends on it. I can see them worried about the exam, so was I. Sister Tessina came in and we greeted her, before beginning the class she told us the church is conducting a one day program, a visit to a home for mentally challenged people. 

Nobody is interested, it is the end of our school years and our exams our at our door steps, we have to study hard each and every waking ours. There is one guy who brought his chemistry text to book to Sunday class so that he can learn something when ever he get time in between. I don't blame anyone for not having the interest, we are all worried about our exams. We all see our higher secondary exams as the most important milestone of our lives. ( Thinking about all the hard work and worry we went through, now I laugh hard and also proud)

Later that day, Sister Tessina, convinced all the students to come for the program. I don't remember how she did it, but we all agreed to go. She is one of the most loving and caring Sunday school teacher I ever had, I can't say "No" to her, she was a great spiritual guide to me. 

The program was fixed on next Sunday right after the holy mass. We didn't know what to expect, all we were told was, we will be visiting the home understand about people that we never see in normal life day to day life, we will be spending time with them talking and listening to their story, also we will be singing songs for them and help cook food for them. We were about 25 students in the class, we took a line bus to the place,  it is just a 20 min journey from our church.  (For privacy reasons I am not including the place names.)

We reached the place about 9:00 am, at the gate we saw a small chapel and  a path beside to the chapel directed us to the main building.  A two storey building, surrounded by large trees and garden, peaceful place. 

As we entered the building, we were welcomed by smiling faces of residents, they were mostly women at the age of 40+, they were all smiling and laughing out in joy to see us all. This gave me a warm feeling inside. Our groups visit made them happy, this is something new to me. Few of the residents are watching television, in their own world as they don't understand what is going on in day to day life. Most of the residents and mentally challenged but they are smiling all the time.  

We spent a little time with them in the hall as they asked about us and we replied. Later then we were guided further inside the building.  We approached a grilled door and one of the caretaker unlocked the grilled door and opened the door for us. It was the backyard of the building an open space surrounded by tall walls. At the end of the open space was another building. We all formed a line and walked towards this building. The building had a collapsible gate (as show in the picture below) and  was locked with heavy lock and chain and as we reached the building lot of men showed up at the gate greeting us. 

Most of them wished us hello and started asking about us. I can now clearing see why they are inside and locked. They are bit too unstable to be with the others in the front building. One man of age 30+  started asking about have they see his family? We didn't know what to say. One of the caretaker replied to him, yes, they called, they are on their way. A few minutes after he started asking the same question. These are all unstable people with different mental conditions. 

Then there was this one young smart man who came to the gate, and said "Hi" to me. He was wearing a white kurta and blue jeans. My friends shakes me and said go near him, I went near him and said hi back, and he gave his hands through the gate to shake hands with me, we shook hands, I asked his name and he replied "Sabari ". I don't know why but he instantly liked me. At first I thought he must be a caretaker here, after seeing  our new born friendship the one of the caretaker who was standing with us said he says he is a mechanical engineer and he is from our neighboring state, got mentally challenged due some unknown reason and  the people brought him here and I though to myself wow, this guy must me a mastermind, all I can think about or cared about was his engineering degree,  I have heard engineering is tough to learn. And that was the first time I am meeting an engineer. My young 19 year old mind wants to know how tough is engineering to learn, do they have lot of mathematics equations, and on and on, he didn't reply to any questions. He just stood there and looked me into the eye. 

So all that education is been erased from his memory? Sad. I wanted to ask a lot of questions regarding engineering. I still can't see him as a mentally challenged man, he is just 26 or 28 at that time, too young and smart to me mentally challenged guy. He certainly do not belong here. 

As we talked the caretakers opened the gate for us and told all the boys to get in, the girls went back inside the main building. This building was just two large halls without any bed, separated by the toilet in  between these halls. They all slept on the floor. Once all the boys were in, the caretaker locked us in and he went away, one of my friend started panicking. He said "You know what, these people can get violent sometimes and it is impossible to control them." Now this is getting scary, almost 50 men vs  13 skinny boys, we are outmatched.  

The caretaker returned with a few mops, brooms, scrub brush and liquid surface cleaners etc. He have us these tools through the gate. So now we are clear, our job is to clean these two halls. Fair enough. And the residents in this particular block was surprising friendly too,  I was nervous if they would get violent any time. We started cleaning from one side of the hall. 

Suddenly the unimaginable happen. Everyone started removing there clothes. It was time for them to bath. Oh no!, I said to myself, where the hell am I ? I can't think or speak properly. Naked men waking around naked like toddlers. I don't know what's going on. I am having a brain fog, I can't explain the thoughts that's going in my brain. 

I never seen an human being naked before, it was way too much for a 19 year old me. 

Men aged 28 to 70+ walking around naked. They are not shy of anything, they are just adult toddlers. 

Then here comes my new friend, Sabari is naked too, he came near me and said hi again, I didn't look down, I don't want to loose the first impression he have made. I replied hi again, I didn't want to see the nakedness of my friend. This is a vulnerable state any man can be. I felt sad to see him this way. Life is so unfair.  

These are the people who have went though hell in life and came out mentally challenged or lost their minds. The reason of each cases are different, lose of a close family member, alcohol, drug overuse, physical and mental abuse at an young age, accidents. The list goes on. They couldn't take it, their mind or heart was too light for the tragedies of life. Going insane was the only escape for them. Now they are just kids in a grownups body.

They all stood naked near to the grilled gate in line to get a shower, now as I write I remember the Nazi concentration camps, you might have seen the pictures or the videos of those people standing there naked. Same here. Me and my friends didn't talk anything about it. I believe this incident have already changed our minds. We focused on our work. Water was showered on the residents and they took bath by themselves, a few needed special help. They are all just babies inside. They are just like you and me, just humans who had a different path in life and ended up here. It is just a matter of luck or an uncontrollable or unexplained phenomenon that we didn't end up like them. We are so lucky. 

Last week we were complaining about how hard our life has been, now after seeing this, what we suffer is nothing compared to them. We understood how lucky we are that day. Whom should we thank for all this? 

We completed our job here, cleaned both halls well, by this time all the residents have finished their bath and had put on fresh clean clothes. We cleaned ourselves up and went inside the main building. The girls contributed their time in helping at the kitchen and we had our lunch with the residents together.  This day have already been so long and still trying to figure out what happened to me. I definitely see that something have changed in me, I got a revelation for life.

After completing our lunch we started walking inside the building exploring the upper floor. There was nobody there. We visited a few rooms for the residents, here it is better, they all had good bed to sleep and cupboards. 

  

Out of nowhere a man came out of one on the room. This startled us but he was very friendly man of his 40s. He started sharing this story by showing us his fingers. He didn't have the tip on any fingers, he said he bit off, his finger tips. He used to smoke 10 packets of cigarettes everyday and this continued for a long time, once he couldn't feel the time of his fingers, so he bit them off one by one. This is the most insane thing I have ever heard in my life at that time. I couldn't imagine such a thing. 

Final Note

Life is unfair, for the most part, our life will be a tough journey , accept that life is tough, if we didn't get the lucky lot in life our life continues to be suffering and we have to crawl through dirt and keep crawling until we reach a stable position in life. 

No matter how tough life is for us, there is always someone how have even harder life. All we can do it try to live life to the fullest with what we have and try to achieve more out of life inch by inch. This will help us have a better life for us and our kids. 

Thank God or that ultimate truth or science (if you are an atheist), for what we have now. This is all we have. Tomorrow is not a guaranteed. Be grateful and enjoy the present. Life can be little better when we live in the present. 

We are not born equal, our life is not equal,  we don't even think equal, we are all selfish, and there will always be someone who is unfortunate. All we can do for them is spend some time and try to give them a hand to get out of their misery. We are equal in front of the law and when we go insane and end up in a place like this. There is no difference between the rich , poor or religion inside this building. They are all the same.   

As always the  even this post is so long. I hope was able to give you some insight on life. 

Thank you for reading. Let me know your comments below. 

Thank you.