Battling opium addiction in India’s wild west

Opium is big business in India. In 2007 alone, India produced almost 350 tones of raw, legal opium for the international pharmaceutical industry. Despite strict monitoring of poppy farms, some of the opium always makes its way to the black market.

Opium’s ready availability coupled with its use in traditional ceremonies has led to high levels of addiction in the Western state of Rajasthan. At the frontline of this battle is a small detoxification centre. For almost three decades the centre has been helping addicts using unique and sometimes controversial methods.

Opium Treatment in Rajasthan by Lauren_Farrow

Aired on Deutsche Welle‘s World in Progress, September 15, 2010

Sitting on the sand under the relentless desert sun, twenty men are stretching into mountain and lotus poses.

It’s day six of a detox program, at the Opium De-Addiction Treatment Centre in Rajasthan, in India’s west. The men are battling serious addictions but little strain shows on their faces as they follow the directions of their instructor, Narendra Singh Chouhan.

Chouhan says yoga helps ease the men’s withdrawal symptoms, which include muscle spasms, vomiting and insomnia.

“Yoga increases first the mental concentration and gives him peace of mind. It also relaxes the body physically.”

Among the men is 31-year-old Subhash who comes from Haryana – Rajasthan’s neighbouring state. Subhash received no drug education during school and never knew that opium was addictive.

“Most of the labourers in the rice mill where I work are addicted to opium. They started giving me little bits here and there and I started taking it. I didn’t think there would be a problem.”

Two years later Subhash was spending four out of every five dollars he earned to support his habit.

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A daily kathakali is the really one – it’s not a CD

 

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When people come to India to visit, they’re often bewildered as to why I’m living here. They see poverty, desperation and the overwhelming dirtiness and chaos of a country bursting at the seams.

It’s all these things. But with the negatives of more than a billion people, also comes an unfettered cultural vibrancy, which differs from state to state. In India, whether it’s in someone’s house or blaring from roadside speakers, art and culture is a part of everyday life. It’s such a commonplace experience, that it often accompanies little fanfare.

When we were in Varkala, a beach town resort in the southern state of Kerala, we walked past a tent where they were holding nightly shows of kathakali – a classical dance-drama of the state, which dates from the 17th century.

On first glance the production looked flimsy. We sat on plastic deck chairs, facing a makeshift stage with a single incandescent bulb floating overhead. The supplied brochure didn’t fill me with much confidence either.

“This is truthful information. A daily kathakali is the really one. It is not a CD player programme. This is doing daily in our theatre, not like the beach resort and dining hall. This is a real like kathakali doing like in temples with live drums and live music. A daily one is with three dancers two drammers one singer and one story teller. Total seven people. Music doing with CD player for kathakali is equal to killing the great art. A real artist never do this. Realise the fact. Do not fell in trap with CD.”

Clearly, CDs are the work of the devil, but what of kathakali?

The general jist is that it’s an ancient artform that retels classic stories through dance and music. But it’s no Sound of Music. The actors themselves remain strangely mute, with the musicians doing the singing. Instead, the performers rely on exagerrated facial expressions and elaborate hand movements to tell the story.

The good character is masked in elaborate green makeup and a white beard. While the bad character is painted in black and red. Both wear bulky, ornate costumes which leave them looking like over-fed babushka dolls.

The makeup takes hours to apply and is a combination of natural materials, like rice paste, lime and coconut oil. They even place a herb, chundappoo in the eyes of the good character to fill them with a blood red colour.