Phas Gaya - Being Stuck


  • Photographer
    Enrico Fabian
  • Prize
    Honorable Mention

Phas Gaya - Being Stuck “Since my mother died everything has changed to the worse. If it wasn't for my two small children, I would have committed suicide a long time ago. This damn medicine, these damn drugs…”, told me Fakir, crying about his loss and life, sitting lonely in his small room of the family’s house. The plastic tube which entangled his arm tight, making the injecting easier for him seemed like an allegory for his life, a life in stagnation, being stuck – Phas Gaya.

Story

Phas Gaya - Being Stuck

“Since my mother died everything has changed to the worse. If it wasn't for my two small children, I would have committed suicide a long time ago. This damn medicine, these damn drugs…”, told me Fakir, crying about his loss and life, sitting lonely in his small room of the family’s house. The plastic tube which entangled his arm tight, making the injecting easier for him seemed like an allegory for his life, a life in stagnation, being stuck – Phas Gaya.

Fakir, now 29 years old, went to a few rehabs from 2002 onwards, back then for being addicted to smoking heroin and still with the support of his mother trying to change her youngest son's life to better. She died 6 years ago and left a vacuum in Fakir's life, only worsened by family disputes regarding the inheritance and his continuing heroin addiction. Later on, as the heroin became more expensive and the quality worsened, he got introduced to something new: pharmaceuticals.

India, also known as the pharmacy of the Third World, is one of the biggest producers of generic drugs worldwide. The vast variety of up to standard and most importantly affordable pharmaceuticals gives millions of people the chance to treat their illnesses. But the lack of trade monitoring, the cover-up through corruption and the ignorance and greed of the pharmacists have also gotten these medicines, meant to heal, to help people, into the wrong hands.

Since more than two years now Fakir buys his prescription-only drugs from the pharmacy around the corner as easily as they were cough syrup. Multiple times a day he injects a mix of a strong synthetic opioid plus an antihistamine that alongside a syringe and two needles is sold for 40 Indian Rupees (about 0.75 USD). These days his two small children seem to be just enough to keep him somehow living, dreaming and loving. Only they somehow save him from a life that many other addicts endure and worse.

Yet also this last glimpse of hope is under constant threat. Deceived by false friends and neglected by his father, brothers and sisters Fakir is mostly on his own with his problems, not to mention the physical consequences. The little money that his roadside food stall, offering fried pork, generates is just enough to keep his family running. Fakir tries hard but his addiction has long ago tightened its grip around his body and his mind. I would like to tell something different but what the future holds for Fakir I don’t know. I hope he is going to try whatever he can to make life for his children, wife, and eventually for him better.

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