The nasha mukti kendra on Chittaranjan - Neamatpur Road.

Home ground

If you live in Neamatpur, you already know the road.

New Life Foundation has sat on Chittaranjan Road since 2018. Government registration S0003646 of 2018-2019. The board is the one you pass if you take an auto toward the PNB building. People from this ward call about the same things people call about from further away: a drink that moved from evening to morning, a son who will not get out of bed without ganja, a strip of sleeping tablets that ran out and was bought again, cough syrup bought without a prescription. The difference is the journey. From Neamatpur you can be at the desk in ten minutes.

Walk-in is real here. Between 9 in the morning and 4 in the afternoon someone at the desk will speak with you. A phone call first — 90646 76887 — means the counsellor is free for the first hour, which is the hour that matters. Most Neamatpur families do the day programme: names on the board at 9, group, tea, a one-to-one if the board says so, lunch, rest, and home at 6. Tuesday and Friday at 4 is family hour. The person goes home to the same house they woke up in. That is the point, for a lot of households on this road.

The phone is answered at night. Pickup is almost never needed from Neamatpur itself — but if the person will not come, say that on the call and we will talk through what is safe. We are not a hospital. If someone will not wake, or is fitting, go to the nearest emergency room first, then call. We work in English, Hindi and Bengali. The first meeting is free. Nothing is decided at the gate; the numbers are said on the phone.

Neighbours will see the building. Discretion still holds: we do not call a workplace, a landlord, or a relative you did not bring. If you want the first hour without the rest of the house, say so. If you want the house in the room from the start, that is common too. Neamatpur is small enough that privacy is a real worry. We treat it as a real worry.