A Swiss woman settles in India – 14
By Simone Toni Weibel
Himanshu (name changed) was 16 years old when his heart got broken by a girl. He lived with his parents, a driver and a cleaning aid, and his 11 year old sister, in a very poor area of Dehradun. Their house could more accurately be described as a shack but they were a good family. His parents loved him a lot and, especially, his mother would pamper him whenever she could. But now he was heartbroken and his world became something else.
The suffering was so profound that he decided to cut his wrists. He just wanted to die but he was found and saved. Only one week later he did it again. He was more careful this time that he wouldn’t be found. The blood started to flow down his arms and hands and he could feel how he was losing his strength. All of a sudden, his family came to his mind and he thought about the fact that he at least had one and that he could be in a much more miserable place in general, that maybe it was a bad idea in the first place to commit suicide. With his last strength he went out to get help.
Himanshu didn’t try to kill himself anymore, but he started drinking, so that the alcohol would fill up this hole in his heart. At some point that wasn’t enough anymore and he started to use all different kind of drugs. He became a so-called poly addict but his father eventually found out and he sent him to a rehab centre, the first of 5 centres. When Himanshu got clean and was allowed to leave the centre, he used to work in different places. He installed water geysers and such. One job he had was to work in a spa, which turned out to be a whore house and he was the one who had to get all the stuff for the girls inside. He was very afraid then that his father would find out where he was working those days.
Once he got caught by the police on a friend’s bike and he couldn’t show them the vehicle papers, because he had lost the key to the locker. He wanted to call his friend, but he was not allowed to. Instead, they took him to the police station and beat him up. When his father was called to get him, he himself got beaten up and he had a heart attack at the end, which he survived, however.
The fourth centre was a horrible one, Himanshu doesn’t really speak about it. But one day he was called home by his uncle, because there was some puja going on. Himanshu walked into his room and his father’s corpse was laid out on his bed. That was another traumatizing moment and again the young man relapsed.
Now he is in the centre, where I am working too. It is one year now, since he was brought here on Christmas Day. I spent some time with him, teaching him English but today was the first time, that he opened up. He looked straight into my eyes while talking in Hindi, knowing, that I wouldn’t understand him without translation. He is 23 years old now and the drugs have stolen the years of his youth, so in many ways he is still like a teenager. Dreaming about cars, big houses and money. He is doing good for a while, helping in the kitchen and maintaining the house but, all of a sudden, he falls back into bad behaviour and it starts all over again. He has been encouraged to finish school but, after getting registered him, he has a hard time to sit and study. But he can be very engaged, when someone is after him, telling him what to do. Like a child he seems to need this strict guidance, otherwise he gets lost.
See, that’s one story, how to get into drugs, when you have an addictive personality. Addiction cannot be healed – it can only be replaced with another focus. And there are so many reasons, why someone would fall for drugs. It doesn’t matter, if there is wealth or not, or if there is intelligence or not. Not everyone is capable of dealing with life easily and it can happen to anyone. The chances of getting sober for good are very small; one, maybe two out of a hundred can do it. But I have seen, that specifically addictive personalities have that sensitivity in themselves, which makes them special. They have their talent slumbering inside. But what they really need is guidance to discover and love themselves again. To get out of deep shame and feeling guilty. As everybody is carrying a bundle of issues, we should feel for others instead of blaming them and be thankful for what we have to share.
(Simone Toni Weibel (47) is an independent artist, teacher and writer from Switzerland who has settled down in Dehradun.)
