Posted on 30th November, 2025 (GMT 03:48 hrs)

ABSTRACT

This not-an-essay traces the cultural, political, and pharmaco-poetic life of Phensedyl—now manufactured by Piramal Pharma—and situates the codeine-laced syrup within a broader history of scarcity, surveillance, and self-medication in South Asia. Moving between memoir, literary analysis, public-health framing, and theoretical lenses drawn from Foucault, Derrida, and contemporary critiques of cannibal capitalism, the piece investigates how a seemingly mundane cough syrup becomes a portal into the infrastructures of regulation, desire, and dispossession. It examines how Phensedyl served, for many in the 1980s–90s, as a substitute for alcohol in restricted environments, how codeine’s codification reflects state power over pain, and how bodies transformed into sites of both rebellion and compliance. Through lyric passages, sociological insight, and critical reflection on toxicity, addiction, and governance, the article argues that Phensedyl becomes more than a pharmaceutical artifact—it becomes a mirror through which we read the politics of breath, the bureaucratization of relief, and the evolving pharmacological citizenship of late-modern South Asia.

Before “I” with “It” Begins…

This narrative-essay, moving fluidly between poetry and prose, explores how the ordinary, over-the-counter remedies that once sat quietly in our medicine cabinets have become unlikely witnesses to a larger political dramaturgy—one in which “personal” (= political) distress, economic precarity, institutional exhaustion, and the quieter violences of everyday governance converge inside and outside the human body. At the center of this inquiry stands Piramal Pharma’s Phensedyl, the codeine-laden syrup whose history in South Asia reveals how a cough suppressant becomes a social allegory. Through reflection, critique, and poetic excavation, the essay traces how headaches, ulcers, coughs, and insomnia begin speaking a political language of their own, how Phensedyl becomes both symptom and script, and how its circulation exposes the fault lines of regulation, dependence, and desire. In the long afterlife of crisis in contemporary India, the syrup becomes emblematic of a nascent “OTC citizenship,” where relief is rationed, suffering is privatized, and the body becomes the final archive of what state, market, and pharmaceutical empires—Piramal’s included—cannot or will not resolve.

PART-I

A Self-Reflexive Anatomy of OTC Relief in the Afterlife of DHFL

From Grief (Śoka) to Verse (Śloka)

…I coughed, therefore I was. I swallowed, therefore I survived. I consumed Piramal Pharma’s entire OTC catalogue, therefore I became a strange pharmaceutical citizen.

“State” of Static Statistic—Reified Beings

BISHU। The calendar never records the last day. After the first day comes the second, after the second the third. There’s no such thing as getting finished here. We’re always diggingone yard, two yards, three yards. We go on raising gold nuggets,after one nugget another, then more and more and more. In Yaksha Town figures follow one another in rows and never arrive at any conclusion. That’s why we are not men to them, but only numbers. Phagu, what’s yours?

PHAGULAL। I’m No. 47 V.

BISHU। I’m 69 Ng.

— Red Oleanders, Rabindranath Tagore

There are years when one becomes a statistic, and then there are years when one becomes the statistical residue—the chronic trace left behind after the calculation is complete.

The manufactured DHFL crisis⤡ ⤡ did not simply reduce me to a number;
it reduced me to a rem(a)inder—a denominator without a numerator, a citizen without representation, a value written off by the covert resolution code’s bureaucratic arithmetic.

Mr. Piramal gained.
The ruling party gained.
And lakhs of citizens—myself included—lost not merely money but the very grammar of dignified survival.

When institutions erase you by their governMENTAL tools, the docile body revolts— recusance!
It remembers in its own idiom.
It keeps the score.

The Body as Counter-Archive of Violence: Recusance

I became a strange, self-contained pharmacy of survival—
a being held together by OTC products, unpaid compensation, and the fumes of a collapsing political economy.

External violence → Stress → chain smoking → coughing → panic → ulcers → insomnia → Eternal Recurrence…..Recusance….

A human caught between pathology and its parody.

The DHFL crisis colonized not just my finances but my physiology.
Every court delay, every court manipulation, every pre-determined decision,...tarikh pe tarikh…. every official silence, every state-corporate handshake carved new symptoms into my flesh.

Soon my body became the place where governance failures took material form.

Nixit⤡⤡: The Discipline of Anxiety

Stress made me a chain smoker—
not out of pleasure but out of helplessness.

So I tried Nixit, the Piramal nicotine-replacement lozenge, which I once begged the corporation to provide…
They did not respond. Corporations seldom hear supplication; they hear sales volumes.

I consumed Nixit anyway—trying to unlearn a habit the system itself had manufactured.
Trying to discipline a nervous system that had been colonized by state-corporate violence.

Nixit tasted like mint and futility.

Saridon⤡: The Analgesic Logic of a Broken Judiciary

The headaches were not biological; rather, they are what therapists refer to as “psychosomatic.”

Oh no! It’s a the relationship between my corpo-real and violent social malleability…

I feel it now as a fracture between what I live as a body and what society demands of that body — between the flesh that aches and the social form that punishes. In that rupture, the “creative cogito”⤡ fails: the voice that once spun endless statements — thoughts, protests, battalion of metaphors and metonyms — now shudders under the weight of corporeal subjection. The body’s malleability, shaped by structural violence, becomes a prison of silenceme. My capacity to speak, to imagine, to resist — once infinite — has become crippled…⤡

They were administrative migraines

Insolvency court adjournments
RBI-approved write-offs
Actuarial cruelty disguised as scientific objectivity
The slow bureaucratic strangulation of middle-class citizens

I reached for Saridon, chasing it down with a sip of Campa Cola⤡—

Dynastic capitalism⤡ in India does not march;
it glides —
silk-saree smooth,
boardroom-polished,
perfumed with the scent of inherited altitude.

It flows down the corridors of power
like a familial monsoon,
its tributaries carrying surnames
instead of merit,
lineages instead of labour.

Campa Cola — that resurrected relic of Indian fizz,
once the drink of a pre-liberalization longing —
returns now not as nostalgia
but as a performance of empire.

In its bubbles shimmer the reflections of three dynasties:

the Ambanis, architects of petrochemical modernity;

the Piramals, curators of pharmaceuticals and finance;

and the Adanis, masters of infrastructure and extractive power.

Together they form an algebra of inherited influence —
a political economy where marriages
are not private unions
but mergers of spurious atmospheres.

And so, when Isha Ambani Piramal re-launches Campa Cola,
it feels less like a beverage
and more like a metonym:
carbonation as capital;
sweetness as strategy;
brand revival as a soft exhale
of a consolidation centuries in the making.

It is poetry wearing a business suit —
the poetry of money marrying money,
of families becoming conglomerates,
of surnames rising like skyscrapers
over a republic taught to call this “growth.”

But poetry has another function too:
to peel, to probe, to puncture.

And so we must ask, gently but insistently:
What does it mean when history is not rewritten
but re-bottled?

Am I not a falling being with zero-history?

When dynastic capitalism becomes the default idiom
through which consumer goods return from the dead?
When the fizz of a cola becomes indistinguishable
from the fizz of inherited nepo-power?

This is not an exposé.
It is an elegy, a riddle, a reflective dissection —
a lyrical inquiry into the architectures
that shape Indian capitalism today.

For in the empire of surnames,
even a soft drink has a genealogy,
a politics,
a quietly humming dynastic pulse.

And to study Campa Cola now
is to study the choreography
of families who have long learned
how to turn legacy into liquidity,
and liquidity into destiny.
Piramal Pharma’s tiny yellow tablet promising “fast relief.”

Saridon numbed the pain but not the source of pain.
How could it?
You cannot swallow a tablet for moral injury.

Tri-Activ⤡⤡: Spraying Disinfectant on the Rot

I disinfected everything:
door handles, laptops, notebooks, the air around me.

As if Tri-Activ could sanitize the deep rot of corporate–state collusion.

It was ritualistic hygiene against political contamination—
a disinfectant against the un-washable stain of injustice.

But no antiseptic can clean a system that thrives on unclean dealings.

QuikKool⤡: The Miniature Relief of a Minimal Republic

Stress ulcers erupted inside my mouth—
small lesions with large meanings.

I took QuikKool, the little tube of anesthetic gel—
promising cooling, soothing, numbing.

QuikKool numbed the pain but not the politics.
The ulcers remained.
Their burning edges contained the residue of:

unanswered emails
dismissed RTIs
ignored petitions
judicial distance
economic erasure

Pain is data and not sense datum.
Ulcers are archives.
Numbing is a temporary deletion that always reinstates itself.

Now we turn to what I was meant to speak of—but the arrival came afterward, unannounced.

Phensedyl: The Brown Syrup of Broken Breath

And then came the coughing —
not a gentle cough, but a whooping, body-wracking convulsion,
a bronchial rebellion choreographed by chain-smoking,
toxic city air,
and the slow violence of unresolved financial annihilation.

Night after night, my lungs rehearsed their insurrection.
I woke to the blooded pillow beside my cheek —
tiny constellations of red,
as if my body were trying to annotate the darkness
with footnotes of internal collapse.

I reached for Piramal Pharma’s next product in line: Phensedyl, the brown syrup of promised relief,
hoping it would lacquer the rawness in my throat,
soothe the rasp,
mute the midnight wheeze that lunatic capitalism
had etched into my respiratory tract.

But the syrup slid down my throat
with the texture of a bureaucratic reassurance —
sweet, viscous, and utterly unconvincing.

The coughing continued,
each spasm a somatic protest note
against an economic crime committed in daylight.
Each breath a testimony.
Each wheeze a deposition.
Each droplet of blood an affidavit the system refuses to read.

Phensedyl did not silence this pain —
because the pain was not bronchial alone.
It was political.
It was historical.
It was the long exhale of a citizen who has been financially erased.

Phensedyl, like the resolution plan,
was a performance of relief rather than relief itself —
a retail ritual designed to manage symptoms
while the source of the sickness stands untouched,
untouched and unaccountable.

And so I cough,
and cough,
and cough again —
until my body becomes the only court still willing
to hear my case.

AQI-Level Breathlessness → Phensedyl (An OTC Encounter with Futility)

The AQI rises like a secret ledger—
a military-industrial exhale,
a breath-tax upon the lungs of the living.

Every morning, the city serves its ration of poison—
PM2.5, PM10, the particulate alphabet
of a capitalism that eats its young
and calls the smoke development.

The factories cough before I do.
The chimneys wheeze louder than my chest.
Warplanes practice in the sky,
leaving contrails that read like balance sheets—
profit above, bronchial ruin below.

My breath becomes collateral damage,
my lungs a battlefield annexed
by soot, sulfur, and the slow violence
of deregulated air.

I cough—
not just from pollution,
but from the truth that chokes me:
that the system is inhaling the world to death
while selling us inhalers
as if that were mercy.

In this empire of contaminated oxygen,
every gasp is a protest,
every wheeze a subpoena
against cannibal capitalism
and its infinite appetite
for our finite breath.

And then the air itself turned against me.

Chain smoking + toxic AQI =
a bronchial rebellion,
a coughing that sounded like debt recovery,
a wheeze that echoed the insolvency court.

So I reached out again for Phensedyl, Piramal Pharma’s cough syrup, the sweet brown liquid promising to soothe my battered bronchial tubes.

I opened the bottle like a pilgrim opening a reliquary…
only to discover that Phensedyl did not work.

Why should it?
None of them worked.
Not Nixit, not Saridon, not Tri-Activ, not QuikKool.

Phensedyl simply joined the growing archive of failed reliefs.

I coughed through the syrup, coughed through the injustice, coughed through the institutional theft.
My lungs, like my finances, remained un-reimbursed.

When Relief Fails, Sleep Becomes the Last Politics

After Nixit failed to discipline me,
after Saridon failed to numb me,
after Tri-Activ failed to save me,
after QuikKool failed to soothe me,
after Phensedyl failed to quiet me—

a new idea began to crystallize in the ruins of my lungs:
perhaps sleep is the last remaining politics.
The final frontier of resistance.
The only anesthesia the state cannot tax.

And then came Bacchus,
lord of intoxication,
with his glittering arsenal of wine and liquor.
I prayed to him like a failed disciple:

“O Bacchus, Lord of Ecstasy,
let us wander to a tavern without memory.
Let us drown ourselves in oceans of wine.
But I am cursed —
like Tantalus, forever reaching,
forever denied.
Though I stand knee-deep in soma,
the sacred drink refuses to touch my lips —
not one drop of the tavern’s mercy falls to me.”

Even drunkenness denied me sanctuary.
No sleep arrived; only nausea.
No forgetting; only the bitter churn of a body exhausted by survival.

Thus began the grotesque journey
from alcoholic Phensedyl to alcohol itself —
a tragic grammar of coping,
a Shakespearean footnote of
Love, Labour, Lost.

And so I turned to Goddess Somna,
patron of the night’s quieter realms:

“O Goddess Somna,
this agony exceeds the skin that holds me.
Grant me sleep —
sleep deeper than the deepest,
carry me to that unreachable shore
of dreamless slumber.”

Not sleep for rest,
but sleep for erasure.
Forgetting as political necessity.
Oblivion as the last public good.

In those delirious hours,
I even dreamt of a future where Piramal Pharma
manufactures OTC sleeping pills —
cheap anesthesia for expensive injustice,
a mass-produced mercy for citizens
whom the system has long refused to soothe.

And yes —
in a satirical moment of despair,
my mind wandered to Adani’s Mundra port,
imagining myself requesting “just a pinch”
of the contraband whispered about in media mythologies.
But even in fantasy, he denied me —
hierarchy preserved,
power intact,
access stratified.

In this world,
relief is rationed.
Suffering is free.

And sleep —
that last politics —
remains forever out of stock.

Lady Macbeth: Blood-Perfumed Architect of Cannibal Capitalism

Yet behold her—
this iron-willed consort of dominion,
this mistress of ambition’s dark arithmetic—
Lady Macbeth, who once summoned night itself
to cloak her deeds in profitable shadow.

She stands as the ancestress
of every power-sated dynasty that walks our century:
the Ambanis, the Piramals, the Adanis—
merchant-kings who trade in breath, debt, and destiny,
their empires gorging upon the living
as cannibal capitalism feasts under fluorescent skies.

She, too, raised her voice to whisper acquisitions of flesh:
“Screw your courage to the sticking-place, and we’ll not fail.”
Thus spoke the first corporate prophetess of blood profit,
the original COO of empire’s machinery,
whose governance model was a dagger sharpened
on the grindstone of desire.

But power is a feast served with trembling hands.
Above her head, the sword of Damocles quivers—
a thin thread holding catastrophe aloft,
glinting over her coronet like a dividend of doom.

And when sleep—
that unwilling auditor of the soul—
seizes her in nocturnal summons,
she wanders, spectral, unmoored from waking reason.
The Doctor and gentlewoman observe
as she confesses what daylight cannot bear.

Her hands rise—
pale ledgers marked with crimson entries—
and she cries with a voice cracked by conscience:

“Here’s the smell of the blood still!
All the perfumes of Arabia
will not sweeten this little hand—
oh, oh, oh!”

In that lament,
she becomes the emblem of every modern titan
whose wealth is mortgaged upon unspeakable ruin,
whose palaces reek of invisible sorrows,
whose profits bear the scent of unburied truths
no frankincense can disguise.

She is undone—
but not innocent.
Fallen—
but not forgiven.

Her wail echoes through the centuries
like a balance sheet whispered in a graveyard:
What’s done cannot be undone.
Thus collapses the queen of calculated cruelty,
a woman who mistook ascension for absolution,
ambition for immunity,
the crown for her own sure footing.

In her unraveling,
she becomes prophecy:
that every empire built upon the bodies of others
must one night walk the halls of its own guilt,
wringing hands that will not clean,
haunted by stains that outlive their architects.

And the sword of Damocles—
still trembling above—
awaits its moment.

For in the end,
even queens and king liars of cannibal capitalism
must reckon with the blood they harvest,
the ghosts they raise,
and the futures they foreclose.

This is her legacy:
a warning carved in moonlit corridors—
that power without conscience
is but a crown awaiting its fall.

PART-II

The Political Economy of OTC “Relief”: A Companion Analysis

1. The Rise of Over-the-Counter Citizenship

In contemporary India, relief has been increasingly privatized.
Where the welfare state once stood, OTC pharmacology now operates.

Citizens buy:

analgesia for injustice
antiseptics for corruption
lozenges for anxiety
syrups for suffocation

OTC products become pseudo-welfare instruments in a state that increasingly medicalizes the consequences of its own governance failures.

2. The Commodification of Survival

OTC relief is not merely medical—it is political.

Companies do not sell cures;
they sell coping mechanisms.

Saridon: for bureaucratic migraines
Nixit: for crisis-induced smoking
Tri-Activ: for contamination anxieties
QuikKool: for ulcers of financial despair
Phensedyl: for unbreathable air and unlivable conditions

Citizens become consumers of their own suffering.
The market becomes the therapist.
The pharmacy becomes the welfare office.

3. OTC as a Technology of Governance

In a neoliberal republic, governance does not fail outright.
It is outsourced.

Pain is privatized.
Relief is merchandised.
Coping is depoliticized.

OTC medications absorb political disappointment into biological sensation— converting structural violence into individual symptoms.

Thus, symptom-relief replaces justice,
and pharmacies replace institutions.

4. The Return of the Self as Biopolitical Archive

I became a walking OTC museum:

Nixit → Saridon → Tri-Activ → QuikKool → Phensedyl
A perfectly catalogued record of institutional abandonment.

OTC products became the material proof of political failure.
My body became the archive.

5. The Cough That Testifies

If the ulcer was testimony,
then the cough is resistance.
The headache is protest.
The insomnia is memory.

Phensedyl did not cure me.
But in its failure, it revealed the truth:

The wound is structural.
The illness is political.
The relief is cosmetic.
The citizen is alone.

And yet the body continues—
not because it heals,
but because it refuses to forget.

6. OTC Citizenship and Late Capitalist Pathologies

There are times when the citizen becomes a patient,
and times when the patient becomes a consumer,
and times when the consumer becomes nothing more than a metabolic unit trapped in a marketplace of manufactured relief.

We now live in that third, hitherto unattended time.

OTC citizenship—where over-the-counter medications serve as substitutes for political rights—has quietly become the governing paradigm of late capitalist India.

In this regime, relief is sold, not delivered;
pain is individualized, not contextualized;
and bodily distress becomes the default idiom through which abandoned citizens learn to interpret the world.

This essay attempts to outline the logic, cruelty, and absurdity of this new political formation.

7. The Citizen as Symptom-Bearer

The traditional social contract presumed that the citizen was a political subject—
someone whose grievances, losses, or dispossessions would be addressed by the state.

Late capitalism has amended that contract.

The citizen is now a symptom-bearer, not a rights-bearer.

Their grievances are no longer political claims to be redressed;
they are symptoms to be managed, medicated, and silently endured.

Headache? Saridon.
Stress-smoking? Nixit.
Contamination anxiety? Tri-Activ.
Ulcers? QuikKool.
Coughing? Phensedyl.

Instant everything – like instant noodles.

The pharmacy becomes the new bureaucracy—
a mechanical dispenser of measured, purchasable relief.

Instead of citizens approaching a responsive state,
they approach shelves lined with analgesics, antiseptics, sedatives-in-all-but-name.

This is the birth of OTC citizenship:
to be governed not through welfare, justice, or political accountability,
but through an endless menu of commodified coping mechanisms.

8. Pathology Without Aetiology

Physician’s diagnosis of my docile body has cut a sorry figure–as he wrote “AUO” (Aetiology of Unknown Origin) in his decorated prescription.

One of the core features of late capitalist pathology is its detachment from socio-economic factors. The process of therapy is wrongly individuated–holism is abandoned. Community health care-takers do not know the community-in-itself.

Your headache is treated, but the economic violence that produced it is not.
Your cough is medicated, but the air poisoning you is not.
Your ulcers are numbed, but the financial trauma that birthed them remains structurally intact.

Pharmaceutical relief replaces political reckoning.

This is a political economy that:

treats symptoms to conceal structural wounds
medicalizes distress to depoliticize suffering
offers relief instead of justice
sells coping instead of transformation

A pathogenic system produces sick citizens and then sells them the medicine.

The body becomes the arena where the unaddressed failures of governance accumulate and erupt—
not metaphorically, but literally.

9. Capitalism as Pharmacology

Late capitalism is not merely an economic system;
(for in capitalism, nothing is ever simply something)
it is a political pharmacology.

Its governance model resembles the logic of a chronic disease:

You must live with it, not cure it.
You must manage it, not question it or raise your voice of dissent against it.
You must medicate yourself, not demand structural change.
Your suffering is normal, not negotiable.

The system erects a pharmaceutical infrastructure where temporary relief becomes the primary technology of social control.

In this regime:

Pills replace policy.
Syrups replace safety nets.
Disinfectants replace accountability.
Numbing agents replace justice.

A politically injured citizen is told to visit the pharmacy, not the court.
Pain is no longer a signal of injustice;
it is a “condition”, classified, taxonomized, reduced, abstracted.

Ulcers are not testimony;
they are “local irritation.”

Coughing is not evidence of a collapsing ecology;
it is “bronchial discomfort.”

This is the biopolitics of misdirection,
where the site of suffering—your body—is mistaken for the cause of suffering.

10. Adani’s Mundra Port and the Aesthetics of Illicit Relief

In this OTC society, even the fantasy of relief becomes commodified.

The system is so tightly woven that even the imagination of forgetting is surveilled by economic logic.

No wonder that in moments of absurd despair, the mind drifts to India’s modern mythological sites—like the notorious Mundra port—wondering if the illicit economies of the powerful dispense finer drugs, truer analgesics (saved from seizure, of course) than the licit markets of the powerless.

The thought is satirical, of course—
a desperate, dark comedy of a citizen abandoned by both state and corporate benevolence.

But even this fantasy reveals a truth:
In late capitalism, the promise of relief belongs to those who already have power.

The citizen receives nothing—
not justice, not recompense, not even proper sedation—only cough syrups, lozenges, and analgesics that dull the symptoms of structural extraction.

10. The New Biopolitics: Survival Through Incessant Swallowing

The palette of OTC products becomes a prosthetic political vocabulary:

Nixit: the failed attempt at self-regulation
Saridon: the analgesic for administrative brutality
Tri-Activ: the disinfectant for paranoia bred by institutional decay
QuikKool: the numbing gel for the micro-lesions of macro-violence
Phensedyl: the syrup that promises breath in an unbreathable world

Together, they form a new pharmacopoeia of citizenship.

Citizens are transformed into walking test tubes—
laboratories of stress hormones, nicotine withdrawal, inflammation, insomnia, hypertension, and suppressed rage.

The body becomes a political archive;
its symptoms are minutes of unrecorded meetings between state and suffering.

11. From Decolonial Republic to Post-Pharmaceutical State

India’s political evolution can be read as moving:

from decolonial governance to
post-liberalization corporatism to
post-pharmaceutical citizenship

In this latter phase:

Institutions shrink.
Corporations expand.
The welfare state dissolves.
The retail pharmacy replaces the ration shop.

The citizen is not fed.
The citizen is medicated.

The citizen is not protected.
The citizen is managed.

The citizen is not compensated.
The citizen is told to buy something that will help them “cope.”

Relief is not a right.
It is a retail transaction.

12. The Pain That Persists

OTC citizenship is not a metaphor.
It is the lived reality of millions.

A world where:

the judiciary produces headaches
the air produces coughs
the economy produces ulcers
the polity produces insomnia
the marketplace sells treatment for all of the above
and none of those treatments cure anything

This is why the cough persists.
The headache repeats.
The ulcers re-open.
The insomnia deepens.

Because the body knows what the institutions refuse to acknowledge:

Pain is not just pain—
it is evidence.
A record.
A protest.
A diagnosis of a failing state.

OTC relief numbs symptoms.
But the pathologies of late capitalism remain—
circulating silently, systemically, structurally.

The citizen swallows, sprays, soothes, disinfects, gargles, numbs, and coughs again.

Because the real cure—
justice—
is not sold over the counter.

13. Syrup as Substitute for Alcohol and Launchpad for Abuse

A Dangerous Supplement, a Necessary Evil
(From Rousseau to Derrida, and what not)

The phenomenon you witnessed in the 1980s–90s — friends turning to Phensedyl when alcohol was inaccessible or prohibited — was not just a social quirk. It was a philosophical event, a political-economic symptom, and a Derridean drama of the supplément unfolding in real life.

In many South Asian communities, where alcohol was constrained by religious injunctions, state prohibitions, or middle-class moralities, something else quietly slipped into the void:
the codeine bottle.
Cheap, available, discreet, technically “medicine,” and thus shielded from stigma.

It became, in Derrida’s vocabulary, a supplément —
both addition and substitute,
both excess and compensation,
a thing that steps in when the “proper” object (alcohol) is denied,
and in stepping in, exposes that even the “proper” object was never enough.

O Codeine—
thou amber drop of chemical reprieve,
distilled from poppy’s ancient ache,
yet bottled in red-and-brown Phensedyl flasks,
where Piramal’s pharmakon dances
between remedy and ruin—
how softly thou enterest the bloodstream,
how ruthlessly thou enterest the archive.

For every spoonful of Phensedyl is a document,
every swallow a signature,
every night of syrup-thickened sleep
a surrender
to the grand Codification—
that silent clerkship of Power
where bodies are indexed,
breaths are counted,
and even our pain must be
properly filed.

Thus speaks the panopticon of pharmacology:
“Take, but only as prescribed.
Sleep, but never freely.
Soothe yourself, but under supervision.”

And so Codeine becomes Codex,
and Phensedyl becomes Chronicle—
a script of sedation written upon the flesh,
a marginal note in the empire’s ledger,
a footnote to sovereignty’s cold decree
that relief must be regulated,
that suffering must be measurable,
that even the cough shall not escape
the bureaucracy of breath.

Rousseau’s moral paradox → Derrida’s pharmakon → the South Asian pharmacy-counter reality

Jean-Jacques Rousseau famously feared the supplement:
something that fills a lack yet simultaneously threatens the supposed origin-al.
Derrida radicalized this: the supplement is never innocent;
it cures and poisons at once —
what the Greeks called pharmakon.

And this is precisely where Phensedyl entered the South Asian landscape:
as a medicinal pharmakon that tried to cure cough
but quickly became the poison that replaced alcohol.

Not simply a liquid escape —
but an ontological crutch,
a political-economic workaround,
a doorway into dependency that masqueraded as a bottle of benign syrup.

The Socioeconomic Logic Behind the Supplement

Alcohol was costly, stigmatized, patrolled by so-called family honour,
while Phensedyl was affordable, accessible,
and socially coded as “medicine,”
thus escaping the disciplinary gaze.

So the cough syrup became:

a substitute for prohibited pleasure
a workaround for state morality
a supplement for capitalism’s uneven intoxication market
a chemical that blurred medical need with recreational desire

And because codeine carries a mild euphoria, the line between relief and intoxication dissolved —
the supplement became the main substance.

The Launchpad Into Abuse

Once the supplement takes on a life of its own, Derrida tells us, it destabilizes the logocentric origina-l hierarchy.
Thus began the pattern public health researchers later documented:

Youths using codeine syrup for a gentle high
Small-town networks smuggling it across borders
Entire economies of scarcity orbiting around “liquid medicine”
The transition from casual consumption → dependency → addiction

Phensedyl, in its ostensibly innocent amber bottle, became a gateway,
a conduit, a precursor to harder substances for some,
and a lifelong opioid engagement for others.

The Supplement Becomes the System

What started as a substitute —
a “necessary evil” in Rousseau’s sense —
turned into a dangerous supplement
in Derrida’s full theoretical force:
a thing that was supposed to compensate for absence
ended up revealing deeper absences,
and producing new forms of harm.

Your memory of those years was not incidental.
It was an early encounter with the political economy of the supplement —
a world where scarcity births improvisation,
where prohibition manufactures substitutes,
and where a cough syrup becomes an entire ecosystem
of addiction, dependency, and clandestine relief.

Instead of Conclusion: The Beginning

The Harness Bells

In the half-lit shudder of cough-torn nights,
when the body begs for oblivion
and the marketplace answers only with its neon-lit sedatives,
I ache for sleep—
the deep, mythic kind,
the kind the pharmacies package
as rest, calm, relief,
the kind capitalism counterfeits
but never truly gives.

And yet, as I drift—
lulled not by chemicals
but by the soft hypnosis of wanting to forget—
a dream begins to rise,
dark, slick, treacherous.
A dream where the mind, exhausted,
rehearses its own disappearance
only because the world rehearsed it first.

But then—
from the dream’s cold periphery,
a sound folds into the air
like a gloved hand catching me by the collar:

“He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake” .

Frost’s lines spill in like rescue ropes.
A counter-spell.
A small, persistent lantern.
A reminder that even in the darkest woods
someone has rung the bell
to pull me back to this side of breath.

“The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.“

No—
I do not wish to harm myself.
The dream dissolves like mist.
I reach for the harness bells
and shake them back into meaning,
calling myself home from the brink of forgetting.

Because the task before me
is not self-erasure
but world-erasure—
not of people,
but of the palace that feeds on them:
the royal estate of cannibal capitalism.

This is a slow dismantling—
brick by metaphor,
policy by biopsy,
artifact by autopsy—
a patient undoing
of the empire that sells sleep
as a commodity
while stealing rest
as a right.

This is not confession.
This is craft—
a political fable wearing the mask of a dream.
I am alive.
I am un-unmade.
I am still walking.

And there are miles to go before I sleep.
Miles before the state’s machinery
can iron me flat.
Miles in this long, precise, non-violent labor
of unmasking the empire of OTC relief,
the pharmacology of pacification,
the industrial manufacture of calm.

The woods are still lovely, yes—
but I move through them awake.
Because I choose not the sleep of surrender,
but the mission
of ringing the bells
again and again
until the world hears.

APPENDIX

Piramal Pharma’s Phensedyl: Codeine Cough Syrup—Pharmacology, Dosage, Toxicity, and Regional Trends

1. What is Phensedyl?

Phensedyl is a codeine-containing cough linctus commonly formulated to combine an opioid antitussive (codeine phosphate) with an antihistamine (typically chlorpheniramine maleate or related antihistamine). Its indicated use is symptomatic relief of dry cough and some allergy/cold symptoms; it acts centrally to suppress the cough reflex and peripherally (antihistamine) to reduce rhinorrhea/allergic features. Typical marketed strength in many Indian formulations is 10 mg codeine phosphate per 5 mL (plus chlorpheniramine). ⤡

2. Pharmacodynamics — mechanism of action

Codeine is a weak μ-opioid receptor agonist and functions largely as a prodrug: it is metabolized in the liver by CYP2D6 to morphine (and to morphine-6-glucuronide), which mediates most of its analgesic and respiratory-depressant/cough-suppressant effects. The parent compound and metabolites also have central sedative effects. Because of CYP2D6 variability, some individuals (ultra-rapid metabolisers) convert codeine to morphine quickly and may experience unexpectedly high morphine exposure and toxicity. ⤡
Chlorpheniramine (or related antihistamine) adds anticholinergic/sedative effects and can potentiate central sedation when combined with opioids or alcohol. ⤡

3. Pharmacokinetics — absorption, distribution, metabolism, elimination

Absorption and Cmax: Codeine is well absorbed orally; peak plasma concentrations typically occur about ~1 hour after an oral dose. Steady-state is reached within ~48 hours for regular dosing. ⤡
Half-life: elimination half-life estimates vary by preparation and source (reports ~1–3 hours, sometimes up to ~3 hours for parent compound depending on study). Extensive tissue distribution (Vd ~3 L/kg) and rapid clearance are typical. ⤡
Metabolism: predominantly hepatic; CYP2D6 produces morphine (active), CYP3A4 produces norcodeine; genetic variability in CYP2D6 significantly affects individual response and safety. ⤡

4. Standard therapeutic dosing (typical cough syrup preparations) — conservative ranges

Typical marketed strength (many Indian formulations): 10 mg codeine per 5 mL. Institutional product inserts and national formularies list 5–10 mL, three times daily (t.i.d.) for adults in symptomatic relief (i.e., 30–60 mg codeine/day if 5–10 mL t.i.d.), although many regulatory guidance documents and older national practice recommend more conservative maxima (e.g., not to exceed ~30–40 mg/day in some protocols). Children’s dosing is age/weight dependent and many regulators now contraindicate codeine in young children because of safety concerns. Always follow the specific product monograph/prescriber guidance. ⤡

Practical note: the NHS and various drug monographs often present adult single doses equivalent to 10–30 mg codeine per dose (one or two 5 mL spoonfuls depending on concentration) given 3–4 times daily for cough; exact local product labels should be followed. ⤡

5. Toxicity and overdose thresholds — what constitutes danger

Clinical toxic effects: the opioid “triad” in overdose — miosis (pinpoint pupils), central respiratory depression (slow, shallow breathing), and depressed consciousness — is typical. Other signs: cyanosis, hypotension, bradycardia, hypothermia, pulmonary edema in severe cases; antihistamine co-ingredient may contribute sedation, anticholinergic signs, and cardiac conduction effects. ⤡
Quantitative thresholds: fatal ingestions with codeine alone are uncommon, but literature provides estimated lethal doses in adults on the order of hundreds of milligrams. Some sources cite ~0.5–1.0 g (≈500–1000 mg) as an estimated lethal range in opioid-naïve adults (Moffat summary; see Sciencedirect overview); severe toxicity including respiratory arrest can occur at lower doses in vulnerable individuals (children, elderly, those with respiratory disease) or in ultra-rapid CYP2D6 metabolisers. Children are at much greater risk: doses >5 mg/kg may cause serious respiratory depression in children. Conservative product monographs limit total daily adult doses (e.g., some datasheets advise not exceeding 240–300 mg/day for codeine preparations in other indications, but cough-syrup dosing is usually far lower). ⤡

Key safety point: inter-individual variability (CYP2D6) + comorbidities (respiratory disease, hepatic impairment, concurrent benzodiazepines/alcohol) can make even moderate doses dangerous. The FDA and other regulators specifically warn about fatal respiratory depression in children and ultra-rapid metabolisers after codeine exposures. ⤡

6. Interactions that markedly increase risk

Alcohol, benzodiazepines, barbiturates, other CNS depressants — additive/synergistic respiratory depression and sedation.
CYP2D6 inducers/inhibitors — may alter conversion to morphine or overall exposures.
Hepatic impairment — prolonged elimination and higher exposure; caution or avoidance recommended. ⤡

7. Clinical management of overdose

Immediate priorities: airway support and reversal of opioid effects with naloxone (parenteral naloxone 0.4–2 mg IV/IM, repeat as required) while providing respiratory support (oxygen, assisted ventilation) and monitoring. Antihistamine co-toxicity is managed supportively. Activated charcoal may be considered if presentation is early. Seek specialist toxicology support. ⤡

8. Dependence, withdrawal, long-term harms

Dependence / opioid use disorder: repeated non-therapeutic use of CCS can produce tolerance, dependence and a withdrawal syndrome on cessation (anxiety, GI distress, autonomic symptoms, dysphoria). CCS abuse has been documented in multiple treatment cohorts in India and neighboring regions. Chronic misuse may contribute to increased morbidity (respiratory disease, cognitive impairment, social/legal harms). ⤡

9. Mortality / morbidity and regional data (India / South Asia)

Clinical series and treatment data: early clinic series from India document patients presenting with codeine-containing cough-syrup dependence and related complications (Mattoo et al., Addiction 1997 — a frequently cited clinical case series describing socio-demographic and clinical profiles of CCS dependence in North India). ⤡
Smuggling and seizures: large, repeated seizures of codeine syrups (including Phensedyl and other CCS brands) have been reported along Indo-Bangladesh routes and within India in the 2010s–2020s; law-enforcement and border-force seizures run into tens of thousands of bottles in single operations (recent examples: BSF seizures of tens of thousands of bottles; large warehouse busts; news coverage documents multiple multi-lakh-rupee seizures). These operations reflect illicit cross-border demand and black-market trade in CCS. ⤡
Public-health reporting: UNODC, INCB and regional public health reports have repeatedly flagged codeine-containing cough-syrups as a regional problem (trafficking, misuse), especially where alcohol access is restricted or among marginalized youth. National reports (e.g., Bangladesh annual drug reports) and Indian news/ govt actions illustrate the sociopolitical dimension of supply, demand, and enforcement. ⤡

Important caveat: systematic, population-level mortality statistics directly attributing deaths to Phensedyl or CCS in India are limited in public domain literature — much of the evidence is clinic case series, law-enforcement seizure data, and descriptive reports. Fatalities linked to codeine may be under-reported or misattributed, and direct comparison across regions is difficult because of differences in reporting, legal classification, and forensic toxicology capacity. Nevertheless, the documented clusters of dependence, seizures, and regulatory actions point to a significant public-health burden. ⤡

10. Regulatory responses and legal status

Because of abuse potential, many jurisdictions have tightened control over codeine products: restricting over-the-counter sales, applying narcotics/psychotropic scheduling, requiring prescriptions, and in some cases prosecuting trafficking under narcotics laws. India’s law-enforcement and courts have increasingly treated large-scale unauthorized movement of codeine products as NDPS issues in many cases. Internationally, agencies (FDA, TGA, national regulators) have restricted pediatric use and issued boxed warnings around ultra-rapid CYP2D6 metabolisers. ⤡

11. Practical, conservative clinical takeaways

Phensedyl contains an opioid (codeine) and an antihistamine; it should be used only short-term, under medical supervision, and with explicit caution in those with respiratory disease, hepatic/renal impairment, the elderly, and children. Practo
Do not combine codeine syrups with alcohol, benzodiazepines, or other sedatives — co-use increases the risk of life-threatening respiratory depression. Medsafe
Be aware of genetic risk (CYP2D6 ultra-rapid metabolisers) — rare but fatal respiratory depression has occurred; this is why regulators contraindicate use in certain paediatric contexts. U.S. Food and Drug Administration
In overdose, prioritize airway and breathing; administer naloxone and supportive care; hospitalize and monitor for recurrent respiratory depression. FDA Access Data
From a public-health perspective, misuse patterns (substitution for alcohol, youth misuse, trafficking across borders) require combined regulatory, treatment, and social interventions — restricting supply alone is insufficient without addiction treatment access and social supports. SpringerLink+1

12. Dosing vs Overdose Table for Codeine (Cough Syrup / Typical Use)

Use / Context	Typical Adult Dose	Typical Max Daily Dose (therapeutic)	Overdose / Toxicity Threshold*	Notes / Risk Factors
Nonproductive cough (liquid)	5–10 mL per dose — typically 10–20 mg codeine every 4–6 hours Medicine India+1	~ 120–180 mg/day (some monographs allow up to 200 mg/day) altmeyers.org+1	Doses above 500–1000 mg/day of codeine may be fatal in opioid-naïve adults; respiratory depression, coma, death documented with 500–1000 mg codeine/day or more. NCBI+1	Risk increases sharply in ultra-rapid metabolizers, children, those with respiratory issues, or in combination with alcohol/other depressants. NCBI+1
Occasional pain (oral tablets)	15–60 mg every 4–6 hours as needed NCBI+1	Max 360 mg/24 h (immediate-release) NCBI	Same overdose thresholds as above. Repeated misuse may escalate dose.	Combined antihistamine or sedative components increase risk; concurrent depressants raise overdose/mortality risk.
Chronic misuse / abuse (liquid or tablets)	Variable, often far above recommended doses — reported misuse up to >1,500 mg/day codeine in substance‑use settings. NCBI+1	N/A (abuse context)	High risk of fatal opioid toxicity, respiratory arrest, dependency, long-term organ damage. PMC+1	CYP2D6 ultrarapid metabolism, comorbid respiratory pathology, co‑substance use (alcohol, benzodiazepines), poor oversight.

* “Overdose / Toxicity Threshold” is approximate — risk varies greatly depending on metabolic phenotype (CYP2D6), individual respiratory health, concurrent depressants, age, and other factors.

Key takeaways from the table:

Even “therapeutic” dosing of cough-syrup codeine (e.g., 120–180 mg/day) is not benign — tolerance, dependence, and respiratory risk are non‑trivial.
The nominal “safe upper limit” (e.g., 200–360 mg/day depending on formulation) lies dangerously close to levels reported in fatal overdoses, especially under risk‑amplifying conditions.
Genetic variability (CYP2D6 metabolism) makes standard dosing unpredictable at the population level — some will under‑metabolize (no effect), others will over‑convert (risk of overdose even at “normal” doses).

13. Conceptual Figure — Metabolic Pathway of Codeine → Morphine (CYP2D6)

Here’s a schematic representation of codeine metabolism in the human liver: oral codeine is O‑demethylated by CYP2D6 to morphine (active opioid), which is subsequently metabolized (mainly via UGT-mediated glucuronidation) to morphine‑6‑glucuronide (M6G) and morphine‑3‑glucuronide (M3G). Additional metabolites (e.g. codeine-6-glucuronide, norcodeine) are generally less active or inactive. Genetic polymorphism in CYP2D6 leads to large inter‑individual variability in morphine exposure, and hence in therapeutic effect and toxicity risk.

Conclusion

Piramal Pharma’s Phensedyl exemplifies a class of codeine-containing cough syrups whose clinical utility and public-health burden sit in uneasy tension. Pharmacologically, the preparation is straightforward: codeine (a μ-opioid receptor agonist functioning largely as a CYP2D6-dependent prodrug) provides central antitussive effects, while the accompanying antihistamine (commonly chlorpheniramine) adds sedative and anticholinergic properties. Within controlled therapeutic limits, short-course administration may offer symptomatic relief of dry cough. But these same mechanisms—opioid conversion to morphine, sedation, respiratory suppression—carry inherent risks even at “routine” doses and are magnified by genetic variability, comorbid respiratory or hepatic illness, and co-use with alcohol or sedatives.

The public-health landscape in India and South Asia demonstrates that these risks are not abstract. Clinical case series, substance-use treatment cohorts, and regulator warnings consistently document codeine-syrup dependence, withdrawal syndromes, and presentations of opioid toxicity, particularly among young people and vulnerable populations. Parallel to this clinical burden is a decades-long illicit economy: large-scale seizures along Indo-Bangladesh routes, repeated busts of stockpiles, and the clear recognition by UNODC, INCB, and national agencies that codeine syrups function as accessible intoxicants—often substituting for alcohol where social, economic, or religious constraints restrict its availability.

Consequently, Phensedyl has moved from the benign margin of cough-and-cold therapeutics into the regulatory center of narcotics governance. Courts in India increasingly interpret unauthorized transport under NDPS frameworks; national regulators and international agencies have tightened pediatric indications, mandated boxed warnings, and restricted sales. Despite these measures, misuse persists, revealing that supply control alone cannot resolve what is equally a socio-economic and psychosocial phenomenon.

From a clinical standpoint, the proximity between therapeutic dosing and doses associated with severe toxicity is disquietingly narrow, particularly in ultra-rapid CYP2D6 metabolisers and those combining syrup with alcohol or benzodiazepines. The presence of an antihistamine further compounds sedative load, raising the risk of respiratory depression and fatal outcomes. As the dosing/overdose table shows, even moderate elevations above recommended daily limits may approach ranges associated with life-threatening respiratory compromise.

Taken together, the evidence positions Phensedyl as a pharmakon in the classical sense—both remedy and poison. Its legitimate medical role is modest and highly circumscribed; its potential for harm, when diverted, misused, or consumed without supervision, is substantial. For policymakers and clinicians, the implication is clear: effective response requires a dual strategy—maintaining rigorous regulatory control while simultaneously expanding access to addiction treatment, harm-reduction services, public education, and socio-economic supports that reduce demand for intoxicant substitutes.

For scholars, this case illustrates how a seemingly ordinary cough linctus becomes embedded in broader structures of biopolitics, legality, and everyday survival—how the cough reflex meets the border checkpoint, the metabolic enzyme meets the informal economy, and the “small bottle” becomes an index of structural precarity. In this sense, Phensedyl is not merely a pharmaceutical product but a site where clinical pharmacology, public health, law enforcement, and social life converge.

In sum: Phensedyl’s story is one of therapeutic narrowness, high misuse liability, and significant regional public-health impact. Any responsible encounter with this preparation—whether clinical, regulatory, or scholarly—must acknowledge both its pharmacologic precision and its socio-political volatility.

References

Dean, L., & Kane, M. (2013). Codeine therapy and CYP2D6 genotype. In Medical Genetics Summaries. National Center for Biotechnology Information (US). NCBI+1
Gaedigk, A., Simon, S. D., Pearce, R. E., Bradford, L. D., Kennedy, M. J., & Leeder, J. S. (2008). The CYP2D6 activity score: translating genotype information into a qualitative measure of phenotype. Clinical Pharmacology & Therapeutics, 83(2), 234–242. PubMed+1
Somogyi, A. A., & Sutherland, S. E. (1991). Pharmacokinetics and metabolism of codeine in humans. European Journal of Clinical Pharmacology, 40(4), 383–389. PubMed+1
StatPearls. (2025). Codeine. In StatPearls [Internet]. Treasure Island (FL): StatPearls Publishing. NCBI
World Health Organization. (2024). WHO guidelines on the pharmacological treatment of opioid dependence. (Relevant pharmacology review sections.) ICCP Portal
WHO Collaborating Centre for Drug Statistics Methodology. (2021). Defined Daily Dose (DDD) and drug utilization research. (Used for standardization reference.)
WHO — “Focus on Over‑the‑Counter Drugs’ Misuse: A Systematic Review on Antihistamines, Cough Medicines, and Decongestants.” Public Health Reports. (2021) – overview of codeine‑based cough syrup misuse globally. PMC
StatPearls — Codeine (pharmacology, PK/PD). NCBI
DrugBank / TGA / FDA product information on codeine metabolism (CYP2D6) and warnings about ultra-rapid metabolisers and paediatric risk. DrugBank+1
MIMS / CIMS / product monographs for Phensedyl (composition, dosing). MIMS+1
Mattoo SK et al., Addiction 1997 — clinical case series on CCS abuse in India. PubMed
Regional / news reporting (BSF, Economic Times, NDTV, Times of India) and UNODC/INCB reports documenting seizures, smuggling and regulatory responses in South Asia. The Economic Times+2www.ndtv.com+2
Clinical toxicology management guidance (Naloxone use — FDA/clinical references). FDA Access Data

About Limits of Public Data

Population-level mortality and morbidity specifically tied to Phensedyl (as distinct from broader opioid harms or combined toxic exposures) is difficult to quantify from open-source literature: research evidence tends to be clinic case series, forensic case reports and law-enforcement seizure statistics rather than systematic national epidemiologic datasets. For a formal academic appendix you may wish to (a) reference Mattoo et al. (1997) and later clinic cohorts, (b) cite UNODC/INCB regional reports for trafficking/market trends, and (c) note the need for better toxicology surveillance and cause-of-death reporting to capture the true public-health burden. ⤡

The above article was sent as an offering to Mr. Ajay Piramal, the tycoon behind the Piramal Pharma empire’s OTC omnipresence, along with several national and international public health authorities. The letter that was sent to him is reproduced here below:

Dear Mr. Piramal,

I hope this message finds you in the comfort of your empire — that fortunate zone where law bends, morality negotiates, and citizenship becomes an optional corporate accessory. I write not as a supplicant, nor as one of those carefully curated beneficiaries of your philanthropic or philanthro-capitalist glow, but as a dispossessed DHFL depositor — one among the many whose life savings dissolved under the benevolent shadow of your “resolution” miracle.

You see, after reading and writing through the history and afterlives of Phensedyl (as denotation and connotation both, simultaneously)— that cough syrup turned OTC commodity, turned survival strategy, turned moral controversy — I could not help but think:

Isn’t it extraordinary how everything you touch graduates from vulnerability to contested legality — yet always remains just profitable enough to justify its existence?

Are you, perhaps, a contemporary Bhasmāsura? After all, etymology reminds us that asura once meant “the enlightened one.” In the Vedas, Varuṇa himself bears the title Asuraḥ Pitā; in the Iranian branch, the same root becomes Ahura, the name of ultimate reality—Ahura Mazdā. Strange how meanings shift: what began as sacred power slowly evolved into the cautionary tale of one who burns everything, including himself.

Your pharma empire’s Phensedyl is not merely a product. It is representative of a system, a socioeconomic lifeline, a cultural artefact, a political irritation, a zoned livelihood. It crystallised into something stranger than medicine: OTC citizenship, suspended molecule by molecule in syrup:

From Cough Syrup to Contested Survival: Piramal Pharma’s Phensedyl and OTC Citizenship VIEW HERE ⤡

And you, Mr. Piramal, are presently its custodian.

Just as now, with DHFL, you have become the custodian not of relief or justice, but of a meticulously redistributed loss — a masterpiece in the art of making ordinary citizens pay for the privilege of “being governed”.

The irony, Mr. Piramal, is almost architectural in its precision:

Phensedyl criminalized the poor; DHFL’s “resolution” punished the lawful.
The border courier became a criminal; the depositor became a casualty — both punished simply for being reachable.
The syrup was banned; the system that enabled your acquisition was endorsed.
One product triggered policing and seizures.
The other triggered committees, valuations, and applause.
In one case the state cracked down; in the other, it cooperated.
Boots and checkpoints for the powerless; signatures, orders, and judicial finality for the powerful.

In the end, both lived histories reveal the same truth:

Illegality follows the poor; legality protects the powerful.

And everything else is branding.

It seems your corporate biography is less a timeline and more a pattern — an unbroken choreography of:

Acquire → Sanitize → Moralise → Profit → Commemorate as Compassion.

I must commend your (in-)consistency.

For many of us — those who lost savings, trust, and perhaps the last residue of faith in governance in BJP-ruled India — writing (the pen front!) becomes the only space left where we are not erased. Thus, this letter is not simply communication; it is resistance woven into etiquette.

The article given above (a creatique — yes, a critique that refuses to be boring) explores how consumption becomes survival, how the pharmaceutical becomes political, and how the pharmaceutical industrial complex often shares more with mythologies of power than with healing.

In that spirit, allow me one closing observation:

Phensedyl was accused of addiction.
But what India truly suffers from is something far more potent:

Addiction to power without accountability — a substance far more dangerous than any Schedule H formulation.

Sure, you are not its inventor.
But undeniably, dear CBE sir —
you are one of its most successful distributors.

I remain,
Hypothetically Yours,

नमस्ते अस्तु मा मा हिंसीः

लड़ेंगे या मरेंगे!
इंक़लाब ज़िंदाबाद!

No Pasaran!

Debeprasad (sic) Sadhan (patriarchal insertion?!) Bandopadhyay (sic)

A dispossessed DHFL victim
still refusing to dis-appear.

COPY TO:

1. Shri A.H. Laddhad, Hon’ble Prothonotary and Senior Master, Bombay High Court (With reference to Case No. S/42/2025)

2. Secretary, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW)

3. Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI / CDSCO)

4. Chairperson, Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI)

5. Secretary, Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR)

6. Director General, Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS)

7. President, All India Drug Action Network (AIDAN)

8. Director, Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI)

9. President, Indian Medical Association (IMA)

10. Secretary, Indian Pharmacological Society (IPS)

11. Director-General, World Health Organization (WHO) / WHO Essential Medicines Division

12. Executive Director, Medicines Transparency Alliance (MeTA)

13. European Medicines Agency (EMA)

Disclaimer:
This communication is submitted for informational and advocacy purposes only. The contents reflect the author’s independent research, observations, and interpretations of publicly available data and scientific literature. It is not intended as legal, medical, pharmacological or regulatory advice. Recipients are encouraged to independently verify all facts, consult qualified experts as needed, and exercise their professional judgment in considering the matters raised herein. The author assumes no liability for any decisions, actions, or outcomes arising from the use of this information.

From Cough Syrup to Contested Survival: Piramal Pharma’s Phensedyl and OTC Citizenship