The Saffron Goddess: When Spirituality Meets Mental Health
This excerpt is from Chapter 5 of my upcoming book, A Case of Culture, available for purchase starting January 23, 2022. Learn more about the book here.
I was in my senior year of high school when I learned that Ammamma (my maternal grandmother) suffered for over two decades from severe clinical depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). I had no idea that it ran in my family, matrilineally for generations. Mental illness was a topic that was rarely discussed. Whenever I used to ask Amma about her childhood, she would occasionally mention that Ammamma was very sick and bedridden for many years. I had always assumed it was something related to her physical health.
It turned out that Ammamma was bedridden because she mentally couldn’t get herself to get out of bed. She was frequently overcome with chikaaku, which very roughly translates from Telugu as “irritation” or “anger” or “the sensation of feeling gross.” If I had to describe it, chikaaku most resembles the feeling one gets when PMSing, except Ammamma’s chikaaku wasn’t limited to her periods. She would lash out unexpectedly at family members. She grew tired after even the simplest of tasks. She would wash her hands every time she touched something. She would spend hours at a time taking a bath. She was (and still is) an extreme germophobe (although now to less of an extreme). She rarely left the house because she lacked the motivation to do so (not to mention all the germs that would bring back that feeling of chikaaku). Tatayya (my grandfather) was always out of town on some business trip, and Ammamma was almost always in bed. This was in large part why Amma and both my aunts had to learn to take care of themselves at an early age.
Ammamma never knew that this chikaaku was something she needed to get help for, nor did she know how to get help. She prayed multiple times a day to each of the different photos of Ammoru and Venkateswara and Vinayaka and Krishna and Sai Baba and Shiva and Parvathi that covered the walls of the house. She prayed to the point that she began seeing them every so often. Ammoru (the Mother Goddess) would often appear in front of Ammamma, dressed in a saffron-colored pattu cheera and large red bottu on her forehead. After all, Ammamma was Ammoru’s namesake. Sometimes, Ammoru would tell her to take another shower or to stay inside the house. Other times Ammoru would help her, like the time she came and gave Ammamma a kismis (yellow raisin) packet when Tatayya went into hypoglycemia. To this day, I get chills when I listen to her talk about her miraculous encounters with Ammoru.
And yet, that was also the problem. Ammoru was the Mother Goddess. She was a Divine Being, and to be graced with her presence and guidance was a blessing. Why fix something that was a blessing? Ammamma never talks about why she waited for two decades to get treatment, but I suspect that this might have been a part of it. It was only after many years, after seeing how her quality of life and her time with her now-grown-up children and young grandchildren was compromised, did she agree to seek proper treatment.
In this article series, I share excerpts and stories from my book, A Case of Culture. If you would like to learn more about what happens next, you can find the rest of the story in Chapter 5 of my book, releasing this January 23 on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and other retailers. If you enjoyed this book excerpt, please consider subscribing to this weekly excerpt series and sharing it with your network. To learn more about the book, visit my website. If you would like to connect with me, you can reach me here via email at snigdha.nandipati@gmail.com or @snigdhanandiauthor on Instagram and Facebook.
