Thaindian News

By Sujeet Kumar
Dhamtari (Chhattisgarh), Sep 9 (IANS) He hasn’t stepped out of his house for 25 years. No, he isn’t physically challenged. This 44-year-old man, who lives in a Chhattisgarh village, is simply scared of the sun and its rays.

Gautam Singh Parihar has kept himself confined to his small house in Dhamtari district’s Hinchhapur village for all these years because of his great fear of the sun rays - a phobia neither doctors nor witch doctors have been able to cure.

Parihar is from a poor family, which has now got into debt after spending thousands of rupees on possible cures by a ‘Biaga’, a person who claims to treat people through witchcraft. The village is in the Nagari block, some 160 km from Chhattisgarh capital Raipur.

“I called several doctors to treat my son but no one detected any disease. Whenever we try to take him out from the house during daytime, he starts crying and begins running towards a dark room,” Kala Bai, Parihar’s 65-year-old mother, told IANS.

She said that his fear started when he went into depression after failing in his Class 9 exam. Parihar is the eldest of her two sons.

She recalled the time in 1980 when he failed in his exam.

“For about three-four years he largely confined himself to the house to avoid meeting anyone and later he developed it as a permanent habit,” Kala Bai said.

His brother Chetan Singh Parihar said that he is quite normal while talking to his family, but just refuses to go out of the house.

“He eats food and acts normal…and even responds when I talk to him. But when I ask him to go outside and meet people, he keeps silent and if I try to bring him out, he cries loudly and behaves abnormally,” Chetan said.

“The way he is leading his life has made our life pathetic too…we don’t know how to handle the problem. We don’t have money to pay specialised doctors also,” he rued.

A senior district official has now offered medical and financial help to the troubled family.

“It’s really quite an unusual case. Gautam starts crying and running back to his house when someone tries to bring him out during daytime. It seems he has serious allergy to light and sun rays,” J.P. Singh, assistant director of the panchayat and social welfare department in Dhamtari, told IANS.

“I am trying to provide some financial help to Gautam’s debt-ridden family through my department. I have asked a doctor to examine Guatam and he said that the patient has no mental problem but is very scared of facing daylight,” Singh added.

(Sujeet Kumar can be contacted at sujeet.k@ians.in)