A Hotline for the Broken-Hearted and the Poison-in-Hand

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — The phones start ringing early in the morning, with soft light seeping through straw curtains. Some voices are rushed, others struggle for words to talk about what is hurting them: Relationship troubles and war trauma, loneliness and financial stress.

“We have people who start their day with us — they get up in the morning, call us and then go to work,” said Ranil Prasad Thilakaratne, manager of the CCC Line phone bank, a free counseling service in Sri Lanka’s capital, Colombo. “They get the motivation, the encouragement, to face the day by calling us.”

The hotline is thriving on the backs of a generous brigade of citizens brought together by a deeply rooted culture of volunteerism, stepping forward to help ease the load of Sri Lanka’s vast mental health problems after a three-decade civil war that ended in 2009.

The service’s 90 or so volunteers are filling the breach in a country that by some measures is successfully recovering from the war but is still drastically underserved when it comes to treating mental illness, depression or even just everyday stresses.

About a half-dozen volunteers at a time staff the hotline, in a small house down a nondescript alley. Sitting at their makeshift cubicles, they field about 90 calls a day.

On a small table to the side are three folders with contacts for resources, from institutions dealing with sexual health, to rehab centers, to legal aid organizations.

The hotline’s phone number — 1333 — is toll free and well-advertised, through word of mouth and through partnerships.

One of the important partners has been Shree FM, which has broadcast the No. 1 evening show in the country for the past 16 years.

Called “Firefly Night,” the show is three hours of radio drama taglined “unfortunately, true story.” Most of the listeners are from the rural areas: carpenters, bus drivers, people without television.

As if speaking to the mood of the nation, the subjects are dark: murder, rape, suicide. Its creators struggle to explain why people tune in to such dark stories.

“People like it,” said Chathura Wijerathna, the deputy director of the station. “After a heavy day of work, they wash, they get themselves a little drink and then they sit close to the radio.”

During breaks, the DJ plays hit songs, but also shares the number to the suicide hotline.

Lakmini, who retired after 29 years as a banker, has volunteered at the hotline for four years now. (The counselors shared only their first names, based on the hotline’s policy to keep their staff anonymous.)

One morning earlier this year, her first two calls were from a 21-year-old whose parents were unaccepting of her partner, and from a man deep in debt.

Then came a call from a regular — a grandmother in her 70s who lives with her son and his wife and two children. As soon as they all leave for work and school, she calls to complain that they’re annoying her.

Usually, counselors like Lakmini are trained not to offer advice, but just be a supporting ear. It’s different when the caller is suicidal.

Her most difficult regular caller has been a 33-year old woman who wants to have a sex change, but her family is not accepting.

About six months ago, she began planning to ride her bike onto the track of an incoming train. Her family restricted her movements.

“I have a mother at home, but she doesn’t listen,” she told Lakmini at the end of the first call. “You are like a mother. Can I call you sometimes?” And she does.

Sometimes, the callers have poison in hand as they speak.

Mangalika, a 70-year old former nurse who does three shifts a week, encountered such a person on her second call as a volunteer.

“I am talking to you with my poison in my hand,” a middle-aged man told her. His wife was screaming in the background: “He is not listening to me!”

The man, deeply in debt, said he was fed up with the daily humiliation. Mangalika, nervous, did enough to persuade him to put down the poison and go to the hospital.

Three months later, the couple called again — to share good news. They had started a small shop and life was better. Leafing through the log book kept by the volunteers makes it clear that, at times, the calls have little or nothing to do with mental health.

In January, a pregnant woman from Western province called the toll-free number because her water was breaking and she did not have credit on her phone to call her husband at work. Could they call her husband, please?

They did, and gave her a toll-free number for an ambulance.

From an entry in 2014, a young girl who was about to get married called and asked for help with how to get things ready for the wedding. Days later, she called again and said she had recorded her conversation with the counselor. Listening to it repeatedly brought her peace.

One of the first counselors to come on board was Munas, 57, a marriage counselor and chairman of a mediation board in Kegalle city. He and his wife, a science teacher, have five children. Twice a month, he leaves home at 4:45 a.m. and walks to a bus station for the three-hour ride to Colombo.

One of Munas’ most difficult calls was with a 30-year-old ethnic Tamil woman from a corner of the country devastated by the war. Relatives had stopped her from jumping with her infant daughter in front of a train, and they dialed the hotline.

Her husband was an abusive alcoholic and she had painful kidney problems, she said. She couldn’t see a way to keep going. But Munas was able to persuade her to try. When the call was over, he took a break.

“I drank a glass of water, walked for about 10 minutes to empty my head,” he said. “Then I came back.”

At the end of his day, Munas boards the bus again, for a commute that will deliver him back home past midnight.

Asked what brings him to make the long journey all these years, his eyes glistened, his face brightened. From the pocket of his immaculate Chinese-collared shirt, buttoned to the top, he pulled out a business card.

On the back was a verse of the Quran: “Saving one life is like saving the whole of humanity.”