The Day Elizabeth Clayton's Life Changed Forever

“A child’s life is like a piece of paper on which every passer- by leaves a mark” - Chinese Proverb

“Unless people meet Sujit then they really put him in a category that he does not 'fit' into - he is such a 'one of a kind' kind of kid and they only realise this after they have met him.” – Elizabeth Clayton. 

THE STORY OF SUJIT KUMAR BEGINS:
28th of November 2002.
It was the usual pleasant day, the sun was shining, and a number of Rotarians gathered, with President Deepak Rathod, at the Samabula Old People’s Home to present plastic dining tables as a donation for the Home. I didn’t realize it, but this was the day that my life was to change forever.

A Rotarian colleague, Malini Raghwan very incidentally asked me if I had seen the ‘chicken boy’ that was tied up at the home. My imagination started to run wild – a ‘chicken boy’, someone was actually in this facility that pecked his food and perched like a chicken. How disgusting, how absurd this unreal-like thought was to me. Surely not in the Year 2002, in Fiji, a reasonably sophisticated developing country, could this be for real? That someone nearby me, in this old people’s home, where I was delivering a gift from Rotary, could there possibly be someone, a boy, tied up as an animal, pecking at his food like a chicken? Unbelievable.

I had studied for a degree in behavioral science so I knew about feral children, wild children, children raised with animals, with wolves in particular and children who had been confined and isolated from human contact. I had undertaken research on the importance of human contact at the early stages of child development, the Bowby experiments with orphaned children left for hours alone in their cribs with very little human contact. I understood the consequences of this, of a deprived environment, to the neurology of the child.

I just couldn’t relate to the fact that I was about to meet a real case of a wild feral child that was now confined, tied up in relative isolation, and had been for many years apparently.

How could this be? How had he become feral? Why was he tied up…still? How old was he? Who did this to him? Why was he in this old people's home? If he was retarded then surely he should be somewhere else? So many questions, I was sickened to think any more, and just needed to get to this boy to see why and what condition he was in.

What I saw next will remain with me for the rest of my life and as I think about it even now, my stomach sickens.

The corner of the ward way in the back of the home was dirty looking; there was nothing at all pleasant about it. It was indeed a place of isolation. The paint had come off the walls and it looked as though mildew had taken on a life of its own. The floor had most of its awful grey tiles missing. There was a small round hole that I could see in the very corner. The glass in the windows had been replaced with masonite. Of course it was like this because this is where this boy was hosed down for bathing when the smell got too much; the water, urine and faeces had to go somewhere, so of course the hole had to be there.

The bed was high, an old hospital bed, with worn-out, dark yellow, cracked plastic covered over a flattened mattress. There was a small, empty powder tin against the wall, a ‘comfort toy’ for this boy, as he was seen to jiggle it back and forth erratically, through boredom no doubt. But that was it… except for this boy…this boy who had been referred to me as ‘the chicken boy’. This very disturbed looking boy, lunging forward and backwards on this knotted piece of bed linen, much like a rope, tethered to the wall near his bed. Only some two metres long. This was the extent his life took place in. I was sickened, my face started to quiver around my mouth, I wasn’t about to cry but I was just so horrified, so disgusted with what I saw. He was covered with sores. He could hardly stand up properly and he had very baggy, hot flannel, oversized trousers on that were tied up with bed linen strips. His grey-white T-shirt hung on him. He looked so small to me but so wild. He tried to bite me when I went close to him. He had just defecated on the floor and was playing with this, throwing it around. It was over his face. Could he have been eating his own faeces? Please no, this can’t be happening - and food, real food, how did he get fed? My Rotary colleague, Malini had demonstrated this to me earlier – a pecking motion. I did get to witness this, but before he pecked, first he received the tray with mushy food on it. He would not hesitate but to turn the tray up, the food would go over the plastic covered mattress or on the floor and then he would crouch to start his pecking motions to feed himself - Yes, very much fashioned on the chickens he had been subjected to live with for the formative years of his life.

How long had this gone on for? Well, at least some 20 odd years in the home. He looked about 12 or was it 100? It was hard to decide – like a little boy or like a little old man. His hair was shorn but the hair on his face was long, not too long, but long. This process was apparently done with his hands tied behind his back. Understandably, what else could be done when this boy was not only disturbed but also feral, aggressive, unpredictable and generally unpleasant to deal with? After all he was kept with animals for much of his formative years and then tied up like an animal for the rest of the time so how could there be any semblance of human behaviour in this ‘chicken boy’.

Was he crippled? No, but he appeared to be. Was he mad? No, but he appeared to be. Was he a hopeless case, left in this corner to eventually die there? This seemed to be what was happening. Why would anything change…after all, it had been this way for him for the past 22 years, from the age of 8 when he was brought in by social welfare officers from the chicken coup where he was found, kept there by whoever. The truth will never be known as to who was mostly responsible for the feral condition he was found in. It could have started with his mother, or his father, or both, then with his mother gone, apparently through suicide, and his father murdered, and because he had become so unmanageable, his grandparents just continued to confine him.

The questions continue. Why did this happen to him? What possibly could have been so wrong with him that he was put with chickens and became so feral, so unmanageable? Why didn’t someone, a neighbour, a relative, a passer by, rescue him? A relative told me that at the age of around two years old, he looked like a little monkey in the cage. And then a neighbour spoke out about seeing him in the chicken pen under the house even at 4am in the morning, and they fed him scraps, but didn’t inform the authorities.

Is this really an acceptable practice in this country? At least one person I spoke to says it is - a lawyer of high standing in the country, in the Ombudsman’s office of all places. Is it a cultural thing, related to the child possessing an evil spirit, worsened by the fact that both parents met an untimely and aggressive death, or is it just plain ignorance?

So he may have been born with epilepsy, or maybe he wasn’t, maybe he was injured after birth. I was told of someone using a crowbar on him, someone throwing him down the steps. Did he sustain injuries that caused epilepsy? And then there was something odd about his walk or his hop. Mild cerebral palsy was diagnosed.

But the question to ask is - Could he have risen above his epilepsy and his CP had he been given the nurturing environment that is the right for every child to have? It seems to me that for this boy to survive at all in the conditions he has been subjected to, he has had to have some wits about him.

CAT scans and EEG’s have been done. His has a normal brain, so the environmental deprivation runs deep, and to untangle his past 30 odd years is a formidable task. Is it worth it? Is any human life worth it? Of course this very small, slender, wild, unmanageable Indian boy is worth it, at least the Rotary members thought so.

Sujit Kumar was an innocent ‘child at risk’ – severely abused, traumatized by gross mistreatment- physically scarred, kept with chickens for so long that he imprinted their behaviour, pecking, perching, roosting. Then further confined and isolated in an old people’s home. Continuously tied to the wall at his bed with strips of bed linen where he remained disturbed, wild and feral until he was discovered by members of the Rotary Club of Suva, and put into therapy in an effort to teach him some semblance of human behaviour.

Reports say that Sujit Kumar's mother committed suicide. His father was murdered and put in the boot of his own taxi. It is unclear as to how or why this horrific abuse came about. A ‘forbidden experiment’ that should never have been allowed to happen.

The Superintendent of the Home, at the time Sujit was admitted, in 1979, said:

"Sujit would mostly hop around like a chicken, peck at his food, on the ground, perch and make a noise like the calling of a chicken," she said. "He would prefer to roost on the floor to go to sleep rather than sleep in a bed."

But she considered that he was normal, and not mentally retarded as first thought.

"He was just different to other little boys because he has been so traumatized and mistreated."

In the old people's home, there the disturbed, almost feral young man was tied up for further 22 years - anchored to a wall with strips of bed linen because he was considered wild and unmanageable.

Then came Sujit's encounter with the woman who decided she could civilise this wild ’ man –child’ now aged 33.

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Who is Elizabeth Clayton?