Last time when I visited Guwahati, I met my old friend Dr. Subham. At present he is one of the leading Psychiatrist of Assam. When I went to his chamber, he told me to sit at his personal chamber so that he can finish his talk with a very young and handsome patient. After five-ten minutes he came to his personal chamber and told me, ‘Sorry, I am keeping you waiting for a long time. But you understand that, my job and patients are different from other doctors. This particular boy has a specific problem. He does not want to marry, fearing that his partner will not be happy with him.’
‘Why?’
‘This is not a very uncommon problem. Every man and woman has this fear before his/her marriage. However, the fear may be different for different person. For example, it may be financial, social, physical and some times, even for some unknown reasons. Financial reasons are most common. But physical reasons are also not very uncommon. But a person seldom spells out about physical problems in public. Only a few highly educated people are coming to us for solution of this particular types of problems. This particular boy is also from a very reputed family and he is presently working as an executive in a reputed public sector manufacturing organisation. His parents found a very beautiful girl from a very good family for him. The boy has nothing against the girl. But he does not want to marry her fearing that he will not be able to make her happy physically.’ Subham paused for minute.
‘Is he impotent?’ I asked.
‘No, but he has a feeling that his genital is not sufficiently big enough to satisfy a girl?’ Dr. Subham told with a sigh. Dr. Subham’s face became noticeably looked sad. ‘Initially, I have not told you that, unfortunately, he is my elder brother’s son.’
A rare silence descended into the room. For some time, no one of us dare to break the silence. Finally, Subham broke the silence, ‘When he was young, as happens to many male children, his genital was relatively small and for that his peers used to make fun of him. But as a doctor, I know, after attaining adolescence, it grows to normal size. But some of the children can not forget those early days, and mentally became upset about that and can not cope up normal sexual life.’
‘How one can come out of that psychological problem?’ I asked.
‘Through counselling. That is, exactly what I am doing with my nephew.’
‘How long it will take?’
‘Response from him is very good. It may be because, he is very close to me emotionally. But for unknown person, due to inherent inhibition it may take little longer. Faith on the doctor also matters.’
In the meantime tea was served. I try to discuss some other things not related to his professional life nor mine. But Subham was no mood to finish his topic. He started a new case which is much more acute and damaging. It was about a very rich self made man, Mr. Ardhendu Singh.
Mr. Ardhendu Singh, second son of the parents, was born to a middle class family in the early 60s in a small village of Assam. Though his grandmother (mother’s mom) died long before his mother’s marriage, grandmother( father’s side) made a point to send her daughter in law to her mother’s house at the time of delivery; though, compared to his father’s place, original place his mother was much backward in terms of medical and communication facility. Despite of the fact that, mother of Ardhendu was a working lady( at that time, number of working lady in organized sector in India was less than 1% of the total female population), she could not stay back in husband’s house against the wish of the mother in law. At the time of delivery of the first child, his mother had to go to some relative’s house on the same ground. However, this time she had decided to go to the mother’s house. His father used to visit his mother during the weekends to enquire about her health.
After few days, with the help of a nurse, a baby boy was born, with obvious sign of malnourishment as the gap between his elder brother and him was barely one year. But the voice of the new born was so strong that the mother of a three months old cousin thought, her son was crying. He was nick named as ‘squirrel’ by his uncle because of his long malnourished body. On the second day of his birth, father visited the in laws place and on the way his aunt informed that a baby boy was born. If it would have been any other place of India, he would have been very happy, but it was Assam, where both boy and girl are welcome by parents. His father was also expecting a baby girl, instead of a second son. Father refused to see son’s face for an hour or so, until he was persuaded to see the face of the new born. Probably, bad blood had started between son and father after a few days of his birth.
May be due to his bad blood with his father/or due to strong mentality of the new born, he became more determined in all his activities. In due course of time, he became a very successful business man without any family lineage in business. Without permission of his parents, he married to a lovely girl. After one year of marriage, he was blessed with twins, one son and a daughter. He is a good husband and a very good father who fulfils all the earthly demands of his wife and children. In the meantime, he had constructed a huge palatial building, bought two-three luxury cars, established few factories. By the time he had earned sufficient money not only to visit abroad on business tours but also capable of affording leisure tours abroad with or without family.
But he has been suffering from a major psychological disease from his early childhood. Nobody knew about it; including his parents and wife. He does not want to discuss about the disease till recently, neither he wanted to go to a doctor. Instead, he tried to find a solution to his problem, through his own innovation, he wanted to discuss the matter with unknown effected/involved persons. To implement his thoughts to experiments, he visited one brothel in Mumbai. Instead of having sex with sex worker he asked her whether, his genital was sufficiently big enough to satisfy a lady. The perplexed sex worker said, ‘it is a normal sized organ to satisfy any lady.’ He was happy to hear the answer he pushed some money to the whore over and above her due.
But after few days, a thought had come to his head, ‘Is the prostitute was lying to satisfy his ego and to get a tip for her good words?’ This wild thought engulfed his head, mind and entire thinking process. He lost a few night sleep. Then, finally he decided to ask the same question another sex worker. This time he called a call girl, during a business tour, to his hotel room and asked same question. The girl was very beautiful and her voice was also very beautiful. With her beautiful voice assured him that, he is perfectly alright and looked for a good session. But Ardhendu did not want cheat his wife and thanked the girl and let her go without any further talk. For few days he was very happy.
But alas! They same haunting question had taken over him. During next twenty odd years he travelled entire world, from one continent to another, spending a lot of money. His odyssey is to find only one simple answer, ‘Whether he is capable of satisfying his partner?’ No brothel was unvisited by this man across the globe in last twenty odd years. He started this voyage from Delhi to Lucknow, Patna to Kolkata, Mumbai to Pune, Bangkok to Pataya in Thailand, Netherlands to France, Australia to New Zealand, New York to Rio and so on. Everywhere he got the same answer, ‘it is sufficiently large enough to satisfy any lady.’ But still he is not satisfied, because once he heard his father was confiding to his brother that, his son had a very small instrument, unlikely to be real man.
Tired of those experiments and due to guilty feeling, one day he confided his mental agony to his wife alongwith all his misadventures. After, overcoming initial shock, she cried for a long time. Then got herself composed and discussed the whole matter as a very good friend of her emotionally drained husband and advised him to meet a doctor.
Finally, this man along with his wife, landed at Subham’s clinic. Now he is under treatment, but he will take much longer time compared to other patients due to his age and dogmatic nature. But Subham is sure, he will come out from shell and live a normal life.
(It is based on two real case studies, but names and places are changed to respect the privacy of the persons involved. Only teaching from the two
stories one can learn, one should be very cautious when we tell something about your friends or even your own son/daughter, one should be very careful, it may ruin his/her life for no fault of him/her)
Chapter 5: Mayank’s story hurts Poor Kanak