• Chain pain in the shack 
• 'Kirimaduvel' - folk songs on a fresh note 
• Sensational synergy of bow and keyboard
• A different beat 
• Meaningful expositions of Sri Lankan culture
• Who's who in Sinhala 
• Katana awestruck at the image of Mary
• Mapping the country's progress 
• News 100 years ago 
• That wondrous beauty close up 
• Serendipity and the three Princes
• Every parent's nightmare 
• Helping them survive the trauma 
• A tenant or lessee? 
• A century of caring: Queen Mum turns 100
• Help! The holidays are back 
• First signs of a rethink on immigration- at last 
• Letters to the editor

Chain pain in the shack

By Tharuka Dissanaike

The shack made of makeshift wooden planks which barely withstands the force of the monsoon winds blowing in from the nearby sea, is firmly padlocked from outside as well. Apart from James, the dirty little shanty is home to his father, John, a compulsive kasippu drinker.

At first glance, their imprisonment would seem an inhuman crime. Tall and gaunt, the 70-year-old John, an English speaking ex-wharf clerk at the Ports' Authority, is confined to the tiny, windowless room. His cataract-ridden eyes peer blankly through a cracked plank in the wall. He lies on a dirty mat with a few old newspapers and magazines for company.

But when he speaks, his English is as good as one could expect under the circumstances. "I am well," he croaks, his voice hoarse with long hours of silence and the drink. "But it is my son who is sick. He is mentally not there." John points his index finger to his forehead to illustrate the son's ill-health.

The son meanwhile, stands and stretches. He grins, sarcastically, at the people peering at him through the broken plank. "There's nothing you can do for me. I have been chained and they won't let me out," he spits out in harsh Sinhala. "So what are you looking at?"

A heroin addict since the age of 12, James is now considered a mental patient by his family. The family members say that many a time James had been sent for rehabilitation and even to hospital, but had always managed to escape. When he comes home, all hell breaks loose. He vandalises the shop run by the harried mother and throws stones and bricks at neighbours and torments passing children. Sick of this never-ending cycle of abuse, the eldest brother Starkey had decided to chain him up for good.

So James has, for the past six months, been shackled to the door of this small shack. His toilet is a bucket placed within reach inside the hut. He is led to the public bathing spot, about once a week, by the brother, still in chains. Often, says the father, James tries to escape and is beaten up by his brothers.

James' and his father's pathetic situation was discovered by a group of Catholic laymen from the Modera St. James' Church Legion of Mary while they were visiting these seaside shanties. Ever since, they have been trying to persuade the family to let the duo out. The Modera Police was also notified, after which they had paid a cursory visit to the shanty, scolded the rest of the family and left with instructions to take the chains off the youth and unlock the door.

Members of the Legion have been trying to get the young man into rehabilitation and are seeking ways to introduce him to psychiatric treatment. John, too, has pleaded with church members to find an old people's home for him. 

If the unofficial prison term has been difficult for John and his son, the family has fared no better really. With nine children and a husband addicted to drink, Mariamma has had no joy in her life. At sixty, with two young children still dependent on her and an invalid mother living with them, she has to run a shop by the nearby kovil to make ends meet.

Added to her burden is a husband who would not hesitate to drown in kasippu the moment he is let out and a son who would destroy the shop she runs if he is unshackled. Often John would come home totally drunk and shout in filth at the youngest daughter who is unmarried. The 21-year-old girl has often threatened that she would commit suicide or run away from home if the father misbehaves. The eldest son, Starkey, who still lives with the mother in their ramshackle wooden shanty, has come up with the solution of locking them up. 

Despite pleas from the neighbours, church visits and police instructions, Starkey does not want to let the brother and father out, unless they are permanently out of the neighbourhood. "You may think I'm ill-treating them. But we are doing this for their own good. They get enough to eat and they are kept out of harm. If you are taking him (James) for rehabilitation, you must guarantee that he will not escape and return here," he said.

The plight of these two and their family is symptomatic of our society's failure to deal with two of the most common, yet desperate problems facing us today — drugs and alcohol. There is little support for poverty-stricken families with such difficult and long-term problems. Rehabilitation and long-term help, in the form of a job for James and medical aid for John, are surely the least they deserve to lift them from the morass that has engulfed them.

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