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Table 2. Themes and subthemes emerging from the data.

THEMES SUB-THEMES

Shared reality o Subjective truth

o Mechanized understanding of the
disorder

Resilience (positive/ active) o Getting active

o Keeping things in perspective
o Living in the moment

Being rewarded (positive/passive) o Being helped

o ‘Ticking along’, enjoyment, being
carried along

Carrying a burden (negative/active) o Social burden

o Responsibility and Advocacy
o Ambivalence
o Struggling with acceptance
o Guilt

Having needs (negative/passive) o Social needs

o Practical needs
o Psychological needs
Theme 1: shared reality
One of the basic themes in the film is the question of reality... the sick girl's reality and that
of others around her. Who's to say which is more real? We're all searching for the core reality
that we can't find.This is one of the central themes of the film, addressed by Anu in her search to
understand and come to terms with Meethi’s illness.
On one occasion, when Anu is at work, Meethi’s mother and their maid Charu bring in a
‘witch-doctor’ (Ojha) whom they believe can exorcise the demons causing Meethi’s illness. The
scene of the exorcism is set up as a painful and horrific experience for both the characters in the
film and the audience watching it. The intercutting of the exorcism with Anu’s lecture
on Quantum Physics also sets up a conflict between ‘superstition’ and ‘science’. The scene of the
exorcism, where the camera lingers on the terror and pain experienced both by Meethi and
her carers and on a monstrously depicted Ojha, also sets up a hierarchy between rationality and
humanity of science as opposed to the irrationality and inhumanity of indigenous beliefs about
madness.
Anu does not believe her when Meethi tells her that “Charu brought a strange man to beat
me up.” It is when she discovers that Meethi was telling the truth that Anu starts questioning her
own idea of reality and what it might be for Meethi. This is an interesting scenario. Firstly, there
is reality as we all know it, a comparable, common, shared reality. Then there is the reality as is
experienced by people like Meethi – what others might call delusions. It is the perceived
contradictions between these realities that Anu (and Aparna Sen) are trying to come to terms
with.

Aparna Sen’s claim that the film tries to address the question of reality is thus restricted to
finding a hierarchy for realities and their truth values. There is a third kind of reality that often
goes unaddressed. How does Meethi’s ‘experiential reality of her own illness differ from Anu’s
version of that reality? People with the experience of mental distress have been saying for
quite some time that in order to understand our realities, we need to be able to narrate our
experiences. But having defined us by the perceived reality of our condition, it is easy to cast us
off as people with no narrative voice or agency for story-telling. Anu goes to the psychiatrist to
understand Meethi’s reality. What he explains to Anu is the bio-medical understanding of
schizophrenia. There is no acknowledgment anywhere that this is not necessarily the reality of
Meethi’s life and existence that Anu is so desperate to understand. And the psychiatrist
seems satisfied enough to understand Meethi’s history from Anu. Nowhere is Meethi part of
this process. Perhaps Anu’s (and Aparna Sen’s) quest to understand multiple realities would have
been more fruitful if the person whose reality one is trying to make sense of was part of
that effort.
And, in another surreal moment, Meethi disappears into her reality, into the non-existent
family house with Joydeep and the five children, which only she and the audience can see. The
film ends with Anu, Joydeep, and the doctor frantically searching for her in the streets of
Kolkata. Is Meethi free at last, having found her reality? Or is it being suggested that she is
now totally lost to the real world, having disappeared into the world of her alternative reality?
Many of us who experience shared and alternative realities also learn the crossroads, bridges and
alleyways that allow us to navigate between these worlds. Is Meethi capable of negotiating her
way back and forth?

Theme 2: Resilience
Resilience has been described as thriving in the face of adversity, an active state of mind, being
confident, and having a positive impact on the outcome of a given situation. Becoming proactive,
connecting with others (family, friends, and professional caregivers), and actively seeking
information were described as helpful by many participants:

Other key features of resilience included keeping things in perspective, having trust in oneself,
having choices, not feeling a victim, being able to see things from a different perspective and not
being overwhelmed by challenges, but keeping a healthy distance.

Meethi’s family, comprising an aging mother (Waheeda Rehman) and a maid, try to be patient
and not lose their own minds. The distant family relations tolerate Mithi, while the children are
cruelly amused.
With the responsibility of Mithi and her mother, it's interesting how Anjali's (a professor and
writer) life is full of full stops and commas. Divorced but in a relationship, she refuses her lover's
offer to take a break and escape with him.
While Anjali copes with her emotional life, her mother must deal with aging and the loss of
control that comes with it, while the insensitive maid audaciously brings home a tantrik who
mercilessly beats Mithi up.
Her complaint is believed to be another of her fantastical stories.
But there are moments of endearing clarity. Like once when Anjali explains that she is only
imagining things, Mithi throws back the question 'How would you like it if I told you, you're not
a professor, only imagining it?' This thought is further carried on in discussions between
characters, exploring what is reality and what differentiates it from delusion.

Theme 3: Being Rewarded

Rewards for the caregivers were defined as passive positive experiences, such as being
helped, receiving psychological support, feeling rewarded, and being able to enjoy moments of
respite either alone or with friends. A special reward was the deeper connection with the patient:
Caregivers may also be able to enjoy rewarding moments by themselves, by ‘ticking along’ or
being carried along by the situation, enjoying the simple, taken-for-granted things in life.
During the process of analysis, the distinction between resilience, reward, burden, and
needs became blurred. The terms burden and reward describe the most challenging and the most
rewarding aspects of caring. In addition, they described the ability to experience joy and reward
helping them to foster resilience. Similarly, burdens and needs were closely related, with rewards
emerging when these needs were met and burdens addressed.

I believe, the joy derived from the strong sense of commitment is the main factor that binds
the two apparently different persons together. Therefore, as I still go on repeatedly watching 15
Park Avenue, the popular notion, as well as the scientific definition of Schizophrenia, is
gradually becoming blurred to me. Slowly I start believing that Mithi is the most unified person
in the film. All the decisions she takes are coherent. Others in the film – as in real life – vacillate
several times. The night is unforgettable when Mithi promises her children – unseen by us as
well as by Didi and Charu – that she will go back to them… Urmila, one of her children, says –
‘She was crying so much for you … Mamma, Mamma, I want you…’ – ‘Mamma Mamma I
want to stay with you – ‘When will you come?’ Mithi never forgets the moving calls. Till the
end, she remains committed to her promise to return to them and to stay with them.

Considering the fluidity of burden, reward, resilience and needs, as emerging from the
movie. There is an interrelatedness between the interactions of needs, burden, resilience, and
reward in coping. In this model, coping is not linear, for example, from more need to less need or
from helplessness to confidence. Burden, reward, resilience, and needs coexist, strongly
interrelated and modified by the internal characteristics of both caregiver and patient, the stage of
the disease and personal experiences of the caregiver, for instance, confidence in their abilities to
solve problems and also on external factors, such as experiencing obstacles or challenging events
in caring.

Theme 4: Burden (negative/active)

15, Park Avenue is more of Anu’s story, who has dedicated her life to taking care of Meethi.
Her struggles with her own relationships, the relationship between her and Meethi, who grows up
in the shadow of Anu being more of a mother than an elder sister, and her battles with Meethi’s
schizophrenia.
A divorced Anu finds her second inning, but she puts her relationship with her colleague on
hold to take care of Meethi. However, Meethi in her alternate reality sees Anu as her captor. In
Meethi’s world, she lives with her family at (the non-existent) 15, Park Avenue in Kolkata. In an
immensely painful struggle against the disorder, a resistant Meethi, and Anu’s own demons, she
has to make a choice between holding on and letting go in a surreal climax.

Theme 5: Having Needs

Need was defined as perceived deficits and was a very pervasive theme. However, over time,
needs seemed to become less prevalent as the caregiver became more experienced, despite the
patient’s condition deteriorating. Particularly at the beginning of the illness, psychological needs,
the need for connectedness and communication were universal themes. With time, practical
needs became more important

The need for more information was also reported in the interviews and free text questionnaire
responses, as was the need for encouragement to seek support from local agencies:

Hence, despite all its sophistication in the narration of the story of a mentally distressed woman,
the film fails in its endeavour by not giving Meethi a narrative voice. Meethi’s silencing is
completed by the second narrator of the story – Joydeep. Part of Meethi’s story is revealed to us
when he narrates it to his wife, Lakshmi (Shefali Shah). Meethi and Anu are advised to go on
a vacation to Bhutan, where they run into Joydeep, now happily married with two children.
Joydeep is shocked by Meethi’s present life and by the fact that, while in her reality she
is married to him, in “real” life she does not even recognize him. It is now his turn to come
to terms with reality and his own sense of guilt in betraying her by breaking off their engagement
ten years ago. In a minor, ultimately ineffective, node to the primary concern of the film,
Lakshmi remarks that we are all looking for that illusive reality where we are content. It is his
need to assuage his guilt that drives Joydeep to assist Meethi when she asks for his help in
finding her family at 15 Park Avenue. Joydeep drives her to the place she directs him to,
followed by Anu and the doctor in another car.

We won’t know because Meethi has had no voice to tell us her side of the story. The narrative
seems satisfied to lose her into a world of madness from which there is no return, as the recurring
figure of the old, homeless mad woman seems to indicate.
15 Park Avenue has all the hallmarks of a film that will be well-liked by the
“discerning audience” that Aparna Sen addresses. It might even win some awards.
Meanwhile, for the subject/witness of mental distress, the search for a legitimate space
for her narrative voice continues, both inside the representational spaces of Indian cinema and
outside in the “real” world.