Insan School and Dr. Syed Hasan (Part 2)

Contributed By: Dr. Equbal Wajid (An extract from his Autobiography)

The second abnormal case which I saw at Insan School was of a Hindu sage। He stopped speaking and eating and declared that he is the God। He remained quite mute, never speaking even single word. Dr. Syed Hasan [the Psychiatrist] was trying his best to compel him to speak. It was a very interesting scene. It was a challenge for Dr. Syed Hasan to motivate and compel the mad Sage to utter something. It seemed that the Sage was determined to keep himself mum. Dr. Syed Hasan tried his best, but the Sage remained quite.

After a long struggle the Sage spoke:

“Does Bhagwan [God] eats?”
“Bhagwan [God] doesn’t eats but we do eat, as we are human beings” asked Dr. Syed Hasan.
No answer.
“Bhagwan [God] doesn’t eats but we do eat, as we are human beings” repeated Dr. Syed Hasan again but there was no answer again from the other side. Silence continued…….

Syed Hasan tried his best. In the mean time few school students who were going somewhere stopped to see the mad man. Dr. Hasan used this situation as an aid to his therapy as he correlated the presence of the students with the whole situation and pretended as to fell down up the ground. It made the mad Sage to laugh. Dr. Hasan was very happy as hope arose that he may get excess into the complexities of the man. He smiled with a feeling of success. He looked at us as he wanted to know our comments. We displayed such face impressions on our faces as yes-men use to. Our faces were showing curiosity to know more about the case. Later on I went to my class as it was 11 am and the classes were going on. I never saw the sage again. I thought he may have been be cured after the short therapy.

Sometimes we see Syed Hassan much keen to explain his action. It mostly happened with the intension to teach the teachers and enrich their experiences.

While teaching, I had been assigned the task to edit the School weekly newspaper “Insan Weekly” in Urdu and a Fortnightly newspaper of the Adult Education Department named “Anparh’. I was the editor of the two school news papers which were being printed in the local ‘Mehboob Print Press’. I had been assigned a separate Office with an assistant. I forgot his name, but I remember that my assistant was a local man form a rural area. He had small trimmed beard, and remained always in a silent mood. He used to speak a little with me. He always did whatever job I assigned him. He never became close to me even after I tried a lot. His hand-writing of Urdu was better than me. I felt proud that I had a personal assistant. My colleagues were also jealous to see the Office and the assistant. Just after a month or half the man left the job and never returned. Only then I came to know that he didn’t come to Insan School to work but to be cured. He was a mental patient. I don’t know whether now a days he is alive or nor but I pray Allah to forgive his sin. He was a serious and mysterious gentleman.

More abnormal cases were handled by Dr. Syed Hasan when we happen to be in our classes in the working hours or taking rest in hostels. So I always felt a feeling of loss when some of those cases were treated by Dr. Syed Hassan in my absence. In the evening or in the day walking in the school campus we see some mental cases moving alone unattended and sometimes with their attendants but we don’t know their case history. The patients were allowed to move freely in the School Campus without any kind of restrictions. They were fed and allotted beds to rest with their attendants free of cost. Nobody teases or make jokes with them.


A young married girl from a local village 3 km in the west from Kishanganj became mad. Her case was very serious as she often became violent. Crying loudly, running very fast in the campus, singing songs, Naats [poems written in admiration to Prophet Mohammad, Peace be on Him] and the Verses of the Holy Quran. Her husband was a small farmer and he also had some part time job in an office somewhere at Kishanganj. Her husband was of a polite nature. She was an educated girl in comparison to the status of the locality. Why she became mad was unknown. I believe that Dr. Syed Hassan may have reached the core of the case but he didn’t spoke to us anything about her. I assumed from his silence that she may have been sexually abused by any of her close relatives against her will. Most probably some respectable relative such as elder brother of her husband, her father in law, the uncle of her husband etc. Because she had a religious consciousness so it may have leaded her to a severe guilt feeling and as a suppressed reaction to this she would have lost her emotional balance. Some of my close mates discussed the case with me and said they believe that this was a case of overpowering of Ghosts. The girl became normal, but her abnormality happened to repeat continuingly after each four or five months. We saw her four or five times in a year. As she was as young, merely at the age of 20 or little more, so it was difficult to let her stay in the campus at night except in strong supervision.

I remember one gentleman Mr.S from the village Noorpur of Beagusarai District. Bihar, who resigned a Government job and fight for the MP election and loosed the seat and was badly defeated,. They said that he got on only 28 votes in total. After some time he lost his emotional balance. This was a border line case. His abnormality was not obvious to all but only to the Psychologists and family members. He stayed in the School Campus for few months. He became very close to me. He had a philosophical mind. He was a well read person. He was a serious thinker of Cosmology. I use to listen him and learned from him many things. As a part of his therapy he had been assigned to take some classes in the high school. The student took his class as recreation periods. It was 1980 and I was already been appointed as a Lecturer in Urdu in the newly upgraded Insan School, which was now also called Insan College. The person in my above description use to say that there are only two tenses. The Past tense and the Future tense. He was virtually the denier of the existence of the present. He used to say that the present is so short that we cannot account for it as time.

I also remember his definition of Tense. It was winter and there were arrangements in the open for classes. Mr.S was assigned a class as a part to his treatment. He had to teach English grammar, he wrote on the black board “Tense is an extended period of time” .and then he began to explain it to the students. The students of class Xth were astonished to listen the new definition. They enjoyed a lot with this man. Later on when he returned to normal he went back to his house. When he left the campus I felt sorrow. Years have passed to this happening and I have never heard about him again. I am not sure whether he is alive of not, but I assume that he may have died as if he was in his forties in 1980. If I would have seen him it would have been a matter of joy for both us.

An important thing that I learned form Mr.S was a question which was killing me from a long time due to my own ignorance. There was a lesson in the IXth class test book about universe starting from the sentence “The universe is unlimited…..” I asked may people how it is possible for the universe to be unlimited when God exist. Where will be the place for God, the Hell and the Paradise? I was much disturbed by this question, but nobody helped me. There was no such reading material that I could have consulted with. Once Mr.S was talking to me, he told that the universe is limited. I screamed with joy. “How?” Then he simply drew a circle with his finger up on the earth and said “Like this”. I was too happy with this answer that I am unable to say. In fact this was the answer which I was searching for. I am still thankful to God that he gave me an answer to my question through the mouth of Mr.S and let me temporarily get free from the tension. (to be continued…)

Disclaimer: The article carries the personal view of the contributor based on his personal experience. The author of the blog has not added anything from his side and not responsbile for any type of objections raised by anyone.