Karthik Calling Karthik

Karthik Calling Karthik is one of the few movies that take a closer look at the complexity of human psychology, especially the subconscious mind. The film claims to be based on a severe and complex disorder called “schizophrenia,” but it is quite debatable if Karthik (protagonist) was a schizophrenic, as he also manifests symptoms of dissociative identity disorder (DID).

Here’s a synopsis: Karthik is an introvert who holds himself responsible for his brother’s untimely death during a childhood incident. He has been visiting a psychiatrist in order to get rid of these feelings of guilt. Unable to do so and being trapped in a chaotic work environment worsens the situation. In his quiet meekness, young Karthik finds a minute or two to glance at his crush during office hours. After being fired from his job and spending sleepless nights (weeks?), Karthik decides to commit suicide. Suddenly he receives a phone call to his rescue. He hears his own voice on the phone and the voice promises to rescue him from his life problems. (hence, Karthik calling Karthik).

The phone calls succeed in relieving him of all his personal (romantic relationships with his crush), social (now everybody notices and respects him), and psychological difficulties (newly gained self-esteem). The calls change his life completely. Therefore, he succumbs to the voice call demands and withdraws from professional help. The calls are from no one other than his own alter ego, the cooler, heroic version, contrary to his true self. More like Clark Kent rightly turns into a Super Man. Yet, in that transformation, there is still the element of the real.

While Karthik is happier than ever, Karthik’s alter ego threatens him not to reveal his calls to anyone, and if he does, it will ruin his life. After that, the phone call-Karthik distorts Karthik’s life leaving him without a job, friends, girlfriend, and happiness.

It is later revealed that Karthik has been undergoing therapy since he started complaining about his ‘bully elder brother’ who was a part of his visual hallucination and actually didn’t exist! The way in which everyone overlooked the fact that he might have Schizophrenia except for the psychiatrist. His condition was somewhat ignored as he had been dealing with this condition from a young age when he created a fake brother.

The secret behind his phone calls: Karthik’s phone has the capacity to record messages and act as a playback feature at a certain time. Karthik would wake up in the middle of the night, leave himself messages as his alter ego, and return to sleep, where he would awake once again at 5 AM to take his own calls.

Analysis: Schizophrenia And Dissociative Identity Disorder

Throughout the film, the depiction of bizarre ‘auditory hallucinations’, delusional thinking, apathy, and odd behaviour which are characteristic of ‘Schizophrenia’ is remarkable, but missing out on the main symptom- his alter ego. Schizophrenia, in simple words, is a mental disorder characterized as abnormal behaviour where the person suffering cannot recognize what is real.

Although the term schizophrenia literally means “split-brain”, it has nothing to do with what used to be called the “Multiple Personality Disorder” and now known as “dissociative identity disorder(DID)”. Schizophrenia is marked by disturbances in thought, perception, and speech as well as motor behavior and emotional experience. Schizophrenia means “split mind,” but the name was meant to describe the ‘split’ from reality that you experience during an episode of psychosis.

Schizophrenia is a complicated mental illness that causes hallucinations (sensations that aren’t real) and delusions (beliefs that can’t possibly be true, besides other symptoms like jumbled thoughts, jumbled speech, and difficulties expressing emotions. Other symptoms include:

Social withdrawal
Flat, expressionless gaze
Depression
Oversleeping or insomnia
Forgetful; unable to concentrate
Extreme reaction to criticism

So at the beginning of the movie, these symptoms are portrayed accurately as Karthik is shown as an introvert who lacks confidence and feels trapped in his current job. Karthik also has delusions of “his brother.”. So, at first, it is natural to think that Karthik is schizophrenic but schizophrenia does not result in alter egos. The phone calls were not mere hallucinations but were really recorded by his alter ego.

Dissociative identity disorder causes a split or fragmented understanding of a person’s sense of themselves. Dissociative identity disorder is really more about fragmented identities than many personalities that develop on their own. Most people see different parts of their being a part of the whole person. For people who experience DID, their alter egos may have very different characteristics including their gender, personality, mindset, and behaviour from their original selves. In this case, the phone Karthik was a by-product of real Karthik’s subconscious thoughts and motives who had a completely different aura to his personality.

People who experience DID may have many unexplainable gaps in their memory, forget information they’ve already learned, or have difficulties recalling things they’ve said or done. Sounds familiar? That’s why Karthik could not remember recording the messages as his alter ego woke up at night to do so. A person with dissociative identity disorder (DID) often has a “main personality,” which may be passive, dependent, and depressed, in our case-Karthik. Other symptoms include having distressing dreams and memories about his childhood and mental distress to trauma reminders.

Using schizophrenia as a metaphor for “split personality.” is a bad idea as it only spreads misinformation about a grave mental illness misleading nearly 8 million Indians, mostly between the ages of 16 and 40 years, with symptoms of delusions and hallucinations. A study by the National Alliance of Mental Illness found that over two-thirds of educated Americans think schizophrenia is a ‘split personality’. Karthik calling Karthik somewhat propagated the same without revealing the entire problem of Karthik.

People who experience schizophrenia may hear or feel things that aren’t real or believe things that can’t be real, but these aren’t separate identities. The entire plot of the movie is based on the turn that his life takes after “receiving” phone calls from himself, that is, his alter ego.

For a person with dissociative identity disorder, the “original” self or “main personality” must not be cognizant of what happened while being taken over by the alter ego, which is exactly what happened with Karthik. Although he showed some symptoms of schizophrenia in the beginning, the entire story revolves around his alter-ego, indicating he should have been diagnosed with Dissociative identity disorder. What made it confusing between the diagnosis is, his delusion of an older brother, whereas he did not have one, made the audience believe that he was schizophrenic. Maybe he was schizophrenic since childhood or maybe not, but in the movie, there was a clear case of dissociative identity disorder.

So was he schizophrenic or battling DID?

The answer could be both. This could be the case that Karthik was diagnosed with schizophrenia in childhood and eventually due to emotionally traumatic conditions developed DID (as the phone calls started after he lost his job). There were other dimensions that were left untouched during the movie. But the basic point is: that schizophrenia does not cause alter egos and has nothing to do with “Multiple personality disorder.”

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