Editor,
Cinema, literature, and even public policy in the West remind us again and again that mental illness is real, human, and treatable. In the United States and Europe, despite gaps and stigma, there exists at least a framework of care—insurance covers therapy and psychiatric medication, assertive community treatment teams provide long-term support, and individual placement and support helps patients find jobs rather than remain sidelined on disability pensions. In Italy, the Basaglia Law abolished asylums entirely, ensuring no one is locked away for life. Contrast this with India, where mental illness is still a nameless curse. Here, a patient is too often branded simply as “mad”—a word that erases their identity and denies them treatment.
Consider the reality of these disorders. Schizophrenia is not “madness”; it is distorted thoughts, hallucinations, and delusions, demanding medical care. Borderline Personality Disorder is not “drama,” but an exhausting instability of mood and identity. Eating disorders are perhaps most invisible in India: anorexia nervosa is not “dieting,” but starving the body to escape imagined flaws; bulimia is not “overeating,” but a cycle of bingeing and purging that wrecks both body and mind; pica is not “fussiness,” but the compulsion to eat substances that are not food. Catatonia—when a person freezes into silence or immobility—is not laziness. Depression is not weakness. OCD is not perfectionism. PTSD is not an overreaction. And yet, what makes this worse is how lightly these words are thrown around today—content creators’ joke about being “so OCD” because they like neatness, or “so depressed” because of a bad day, or “traumatized” after a trivial event. These casual misuses trivialize the very real suffering of patients who fight these disorders every single day.
This is not only ignorance but a “collective failure ” of emotional intelligence. In India, the poor and middle class are left stranded—no consistent therapy, no psychiatric follow-ups, no social support. The wealthy may afford medication or private counseling, but even then, families hide the diagnosis in shame. The result is silence, abandonment, or exile to the streets.
As a medical student and as someone who believes empathy is as important as knowledge, I feel the government of India must step forward. If the West can integrate mental health into everyday systems of care, why can’t we? Psychiatric treatment and therapy should be covered by insurance the same way heart disease or cancer is. We need mobile community treatment teams that reach villages and small towns, not just metro hospitals. Patients should be supported to find work, to build dignity and independence, rather than being left to survive on scraps or pity. General hospitals must have strong psychiatric wings but never prisons in the name of care. And above all, our schools, colleges, and workplaces must talk openly about mental health—because stigma can only be broken when knowledge becomes common.
Mental illness is not rare, not foreign, and not shameful. It lives in every city, every village, every home. Until we replace stigma with science, and silence with support, India’s mentally ill will remain unseen, unheard, and uncared for. A nation that prides itself on progress cannot leave its most vulnerable behind.
Yours etc.,
Akhil Dwivedi,
Via email
What Zubeen’s departure teaches us about life
Editor,
When the news of Zubeen Garg’s sudden death reached us, it felt as if the sky over Assam, nay the Northeast, had lost its light. The man who sang in forty languages, who gave us more than thirty-eight thousand songs, who can play a dozen instruments, was suddenly gone. No warning, no encore!
The crowd that gathered to say goodbye was unprecedented, believed to be the fourth-largest public funeral gathering. Of course, it was a tide of grief, roar of emotion, a chorus of hearts once lifted by his musical talent. It was living proof that one’s true wealth lies not in possessions, but in love, it inspires!
Well, Zubeen was in Singapore, not for leisurely fun, but for a purpose — very momentous event, representing the Northeast as Cultural Brand Ambassador. It was a mission filled with pride, joy and festivity, of course with great expectation. Yet fate interrupted. The sea of uncertainty claimed him with a cruel jolt. Yes, life never asks before it snatches a breath. It moves on its own rhythm, its own principles untouched by our narrow plans and ambitions! Didn’t Meghalayans bid farewell to our beloved DD Lapang about a fortnight ago? How can we forget Meghalaya’s musical maestro, Neil Nongkynrih, who departed far too soon, leaving behind only a silence that still echoes?
What an irony indeed and it’s almost laughable that we live in this world as if we’re immortal. We plan, we hoard, we argue over petty issues with the air of arrogance. But the great truth is, we all came here with a return ticket. No one knows when it’s due. It could be today, it could be tomorrow, or in a hundred years — though that’s very rare. Yet we behave as if it’s all in our control. Even the food we painstakingly prepare and enjoy with our tiny two-inch taste buds slips beyond our control the moment we swallow it. Just think, what if the liver forgets to secrete its enzymes, or the heart misses a beat? Some enigmatic forces are at work. We breathe, we blink, we digest –all without command. This inner machinery runs, but who really holds the remote? Sorry for this digression.
In my eyes, Zubeen’s last journey was more than a farewell. It was a reminder, a solemn whisper. A lesson delivered directly from existence itself — that none can negate death. Despite his fame, his genius, his wealth, he left empty-handed, as all must. At the end of the day what truly endures is not what we accumulate, but what we radiate — the love we sow, the joy and compassion we scatter, and the legacy we leave behind.
Hence, if we understand this impermanence of our existence, would we still cling to envy, anger, arrogance, or greed? Or would we learn to choose kindness over ego, forgiveness over pride? Would we not pause and ask — what are we really fighting for, when all battles end at the same shore!
So let us not mourn him with emotion today only to forget him tomorrow. Show respect to him, and to all our beloved ones who have left us, by choosing to live better lives and by remembering that life is a gifted breath from some uncanny power. We can offer each moment as a quiet tribute to the eternal rhythm that moves us all. Therefore, strive to awaken before the mysterious force of time drowns us without notice. Make a sincere effort to correct our course while the compass of conscience still responds.
Yours etc.,
Salil Gewali,
Shillong
