The hall on the first floor of Pratyay, an assisted living space in Calcutta for recovered mental health patients, has been converted into a workshop. A bedcover is being made, which becomes a dramatic event.

The stage is set. The cloth is pinned at the edges of a giant table. A wide black circle, with a blank centre, has already been painted on it. The efficient Sabitri Hembram is standing guard like a sentinel, when in comes Tukai, the young artist.

Like an athlete, he leaps onto the high table, plants himself firmly on its edge and begins to draw with a chalk on the blank space. It is a tour de force. In what looks like one continuous movement, flowers blossom and leaves unfurl. Tukai dips his brush in bright yellow paint, after Sabitri hands him the tub, and paints the flowers and the leaves in bold yellow lines. The effect is stunning. The small audience that has gathered around him breaks into a small applause. Tukai takes an invisible bow. He has been doing this every day for some time now.

Paintings by the residents of Pratyay

Bedcovers are piling up. Next to Tukai, Shankhanil Chatterjee, or Shankha, is printing another bedcover with an intricately patterned block. The sharp black lines stand out against the off-white fabric. Sabitri watches him quietly, ready with whatever he needs.

The bedcovers will be part of an exhibition-cum-sale that is going to be held on the Pratyay premises from July 5 to 6 to celebrate Pratyay’s second anniversary. Anjali, a mental health rights NGO based in Calcutta, is organising the exhibition.

This will be a big step for Pratyay. It was inaugurated on July 7, 2022, by chief minister Mamata Banerjee as a state government halfway home for recovered mental health patients. Anjali manages Pratyay and runs all its operations. The aim of this space is to enable residents to leave it, to live independently outside an institution. For this, earning a living is an essential step.

Paintings by the residents of Pratyay

However, finding work is one of the toughest things for someone who has been stamped mentally ill once, even if she has now been certified recovered.

Currently, 21 individuals stay at Pratyay, a former wing of Lumbini Park mental health hospital at Tiljala. Many of the residents are functional individuals now, able to take care of themselves, take responsibility and carry out orders.

In the last two years, with Anjali working as a facilitator, 38 residents have been placed in various jobs. “They have been placed as caregivers, security guards, domestic help, peons, packers and movers and music teachers, and in laundries, blockprinting units, canteens, media and shops,” says Ratnaboli Ray of Anjali. From Pratyay, 26 persons have gone back to their families. Most importantly, 10 residents have moved out of Pratyay, says Ray, and are living independently after finding jobs. This is the good news.

Paintings by the residents of Pratyay

However, the larger society still does not accept the idea of recovery of mental health, says Ray. Any institutional space outside Pratyay becomes hard to negotiate
for its residents. Hardest perhaps is the job market and its institutions. “The demands of the market, patriarchal and ableist, are in conflict with the labour rights of the disadvantaged,” says Ray.

At the same time, she points out that Pratyay residents have to train themselves for the workplace. Long years of staying indoors — and support from the institutions that have been their home — may not have prepared everyone to join a profession.

“Being ‘normal’ entails being responsible workers, which can become a burden,” says Ray. “We are trying to familiarise them to work hours at Pratyay,” she adds.

Which is why Pratyay has turned into this huge, buzzing workplace. Residents are being given clear work roles, work hours are being logged, efficiency of execution stressed. As part of the block-printing team, Ashwini Das diligently washes away the starch from fabric to ensure brighter printing.

Paintings by the residents of Pratyay

But the bedcovers are not the only stunners. At the exhibition, they will share space with block-printed saris, dupattas and tote bags. Some of the blocks have been based on the drawings of the residents. And there are the drawings and paintings themselves. A number of framed paintings will be on display.

Flowers abound, not only for Tukai, but also for the others. Some flowers are bright, joyful, colourful, simple, perhaps childlike. Some are dark and uneven. Some may resemble viscera or a mass of things that cannot be defined. Family portraits form another series. They are heartbreaking; the residents yearn for their families. “Nothing is tutored. Sometimes keywords or prompts are given,” says Ray.

A series of portraits, faces etched on black, is arresting. Artist Nabendu Sengupta, who has been a facilitator for the residents, explains the initial process undertaken for making prints of the images. “We used the laminated boards that are used as switchboards and painted them with letterpress ink. Needles were used to make the drawings,” he says. Sengupta is also helping to nudge Pratyay into another exciting new direction: ceramic objects.

Ray says that for her, of immense significance is the signature underneath a painting. “It is an art in itself,” she says. The writing of one’s name is also the first claim to identity.