Arshid Malik
I love to experiment with words, especially turning scientific and technological terms into adaptive versions that apply to common human lives. It is a rigorous yet an amusing task. But when I, the writer, look at this word play from a more psyhco-socio-lingual and reasonable point of view I sometimes start believing that I am actually not playing with words but rather creating connections between the animate and inanimate disciplines. It is my belief that all disciplines, be they technological, scientific, philosophical, psychological, social or cultural, all are correlated and are infinitely connected to each other in one way or the other in a manner that no one subject exists in isolation from the others or can afford to assumingly grow without connecting, borrowing and sharing with the plethora of other disciplines.
Today the term I am so on to play with is “Schizophrenia” in connection with “Kashmir” (Kashmir is a part of the state of Jammu and Kashmir and therefore a physical entity but it has earned itself a reputed caricature of an individual discipline which is widely studied and spoken about and thus I am taking it into count as a term and not an entity). I take the liberty here to take it a given that everyone is familiar with the term “Kashmir” and therefore I will go on to elucidate the term Schizophrenia to those who are not familiar with it. Schizophrenia is highly complicated mental disorder and technically, or rather medically, this is a brain disorder that affects the way a person behaves, thinks, and sees the world. People with schizophrenia often have an altered perception of reality. They may see or hear things that don’t exist, speak in strange or confusing ways, believe that others are trying to harm them, or feel like they’re being constantly watched. This can make it difficult to negotiate the activities of daily life and people with schizophrenia may withdraw from the outside world or act out in confusion and fear. In contravention to common knowledge Schizophrenia has been identified and sometimes misunderstood as a multiple personality disorder which is factually incorrect since the person suffering from Schizophrenia does not have a split or multiple personality but is actually associated with a “manufactured reality” which is least in tandem with what actually is the reality. In the broadest outlay the symptoms associated with Schizophrenia include social withdrawal, hostility or suspiciousness, a flat, expressionless gaze, inability to cry or express joy, inappropriate laughter or crying, depression, oversleeping or insomnia, odd or irrational statements, forgetfulness, extreme reaction to criticism, strange use of words or way of speaking. I guess that is it as far as I need to get it except for the fact that people suffering from Schizophrenia are affable people who live normal lives. Now, what is the relation between Kashmir, the term and Schizophrenia the term for a complicated mental disorder?
My studies into Kashmir, the term, its genesis as a term as connected to a discipline and my aggregate assessment of its conjured and identified multiple meanings have led me to believe that it, Kashmir, is closely identifiable with Schizophrenia. Schizophrenia in lay-man terms is the internal conflict of the mind or in other (rather my words) an ectomorphic conflict and understandably Kashmir is an externalized internal conflict, between sets of people or rather mind-sets, which for me decently qualifies as endomorphic.
The term Kashmir and the discipline itself works in association with the situation, habits, culture – as day to day life, strife and other socio-psychological modalities of the people of the territorial Kashmir – the collective self – and therefore the latter has a definitive impact on the former which then emerges with eventual overtures and hypothecations. So, when I say that Kashmir bears similarities to Schizophrenia I am practically meaning to say that Kashmir, the term, is more mind-orientated and operationally depicting dysfunctional traits which are characteristic of the mental disorder I am talking about. As specific to the symptoms of Schizophrenia discussed above I am leaving the court open for extrications. It is great fun, as a matter of fact, to definitively relate Kashmir symptomatically with Schizophrenia.
Kashmir is a “conflict” subject and all its appendages are conflict-oriented and it is there only because it needs to be resolved. I am extrapolating the resolution of the terminological conflict over the political conflict. Once the terminological conflict is resolved Kashmir, the term, gets dissolved which may or may not have any bearing on the actual situation in territorial Kashmir, but my good guess is that it would. In correlation to the mental ailment that is Schizophrenia the methodological systems that are interpolated to isolate the symptoms of the disease and the gradual treatment of the disorder, Kashmir may well be considered with some dispositional changes.
Schizophrenia as a mental disorder is corrected more by way of social integration and organization which includes talk as a therapy medically recognized as psychosocial treatment even though drugs are “morbidly” used since these temporarily “treat” some of the symptoms while the chances of relapse are quite high. As for Kashmir, the term capping the conflict raging down here for two and a half decades here the treatment or rather the resolution is not any different than what is in vogue for Schizophrenia – a psychosocial arrangement for resolution by means of pragmatic dialogue. As long as Kashmir is isolated to books, newspapers and journals, there is no room for betterment and since the term draws life from the actual situation of conflict unless it does not move ahead and eventually get liquidated the Kashmir conflict will stay put.
