150 chapter
Kavitha: No, ōrmma. Does she have ōrmma for past events and all?Mother of Teresa: Th ere is no problem like that.Ōrmma is thus evocative of a type of consciousness that is usually, but not
always, related to the past.
Th e relative of Mahmud, a young Muslim man who was an inpatient at
the Government Ayurveda Mental Hospital (GAMH), brought up another
expression that one of my assistants felt was also best rendered as (loss of )
“consciousness:”
He lost consciousness [talakku oru marichchal—lit.: a turning in his head] is what
he is saying. He lost consciousness [talakku oru marichchal]. After that, he won’t
talk. He speaks only with his arms and legs.Another patient at the GAMH, a young Hindu man, brought up yet
another term that my assistants and I thought best translated as “unconscious.”
Sivan had angry, sometimes violent, outbursts, and his family had taken him
to an allopathic psychiatric hospital before coming to the GAMH. Both types
of facilities are seen as places that can treat problems involving the mind and
“consciousness.” In attempting to explain the origin of his problems, Sivan
recalled:
Sivan: Th ey [friends who had threatened him] made me sick.Benny: Who did this, and how did they make you sick?Sivan: Th ey made me unconscious [mayakki].Benny: Made you unconscious [mayakkiyō]?Sivan: Made me unconscious and scolded me [Mayakkittu parihasichchittu].Maya/mayakkuka can also refer to intoxication, confusion, coma, enchant-
ment and dimness (Madhavanpillai 1976). One could interpret, given these
additional meanings, that maya is a more embodied form of (un)conscious-
ness, states like intoxication or coma requiring a relationship to the body to be
experienced. Or perhaps, consciousness being absent, one has dropped down
to the level of the body or the tangible, like Mahmud above who “speaks only
with his arms and legs” after losing consciousness.
A 35-year-old Hindu man, Santhosh, who was employed part-time at
a photo studio was an inpatient at the state-run, allopathic Mental Health