Date:13/02/2006 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2006/02/13/stories/2006021315861000.htm

Tamil Nadu

Rukmani wields the pen for a noble cause

Ramya Kannan

Her books are a guide to those engaged in de-addiction and rehabilitation

Rukmani Jayaraman. — Photo: R. Shivaji Rao

CHENNAI: Twenty books in about 20 years is no mean achievement. Especially when some of them have virtually served as bible for those engaged in de-addiction and rehabilitation. Rukmani Jayaraman has done just that.

It was a chance meeting with Shanthi Ranganathan, who founded the T.T. Ranganathan Clinical Research Foundation in Chennai as a pioneering centre to rehabilitate persons with addiction, which started this labour of love. It was a happy co-incidence of events: Ms.Jayaraman's children were growing up, leaving her with enough free time; Dr. Shanthi's passion and commitment seemed to beckon her. Ms. Jayaraman decided her calling was to volunteer for the foundation.

The beginning

Her first task was to go to Vellore to attend a training programme on counselling for 15 days. Back at the centre in Chennai, she started giving lectures, counselling family members, and her career in publishing began. "I did not know I could write. Shanthi discovered it," Ms. Jayaraman says.

But once she started there was no holding her back from the parchment and the quill. Her manual for counsellors and community workers was the first ever publication in the country on addiction. It met a long-felt need so effortlessly.

"There is a lot of literature on de-addiction and rehabilitation in the West. However, Rukmani was the first to start writing, focussing more on our own requirements," Dr. Shanthi says. This also meant writing in Tamil, which she seemed equally fluent in, and incorporating aspects that came up as demands from counsellors and families using the books.

Patients' families

Her 20th book, for instance, "Personal Recovery Tools for the Drug Dependent" takes in fables to illustrate some of the points made by the author. "This was a direct demand from the family members who thought it would add substance to the points that I would be making," Ms. Jayaraman says.

The patients' families have been her strongest resource group, their inputs, experiences, trials and tribulations converted into books and manuals, solutions that would also serve others in need. But there is much more that goes into the books, she hastens to add.

Ms. Jayaraman spends hours reading books and browsing the Net to gather material for her manuals. The latest book contains 100 stories, chosen specifically for their relevance and inspiration.

Wide recognition

Thanks to the effort she invests in her books, they have received appreciation from various quarters, including the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, besides counsellors and social workers from different countries.

Never one to rest on her laurels, Ms. Jayaraman is busy working on the Tamil translation of her latest book, to be completed by July, and a manual on effective and positive parenting. She thinks it is the need of the hour, not only for the so-called problem parents, but also for all those who have children.