Dr. Ravi Godse filmmaker/physician

Dr. Ravi Godse filmmaker/physician and  to support the film industry and Media -Sushant Singh Rajput  feeling could be worse with unique pressures of the spotlight. The spotlight illuminates what is in the focus, but is also accentuates the darkness that surrounds

When someone from your own fraternity succumbs, your own failings, insecurities, fallibilities come into sharp focus. We can ascribe any motive to the action and motives are aplenty, but at the end of the day, whether it is truly the end of the day, or a fight into another day, is solely in the domain of the individual. How alone, how helpless, that feeling could be. And that feeling could be worse with unique pressures of the spotlight. The spotlight illuminates what is in the focus, but is also accentuates the darkness that surrounds. John Donne famously said, “ No man is an island.” Well, he was wrong. All of us are islands. Every person is alone but every person is not alone in being alone. All of us are alone. That is the bond. We work with each other. Like the 7 islands of Mumbai! We hang together and build the most resilient, most amazing place in the world.

“The world is a fine place worth fighting for,” said Ernest Hemingway. Who knows what was going through his mind when he shot himself?

The actor Sushant Singh Rajput’s death has shaken people already spooked by the pandemic. There are some calls for the media to not sensationalize it. The media covers what people want covered. The days of William Randolph Hearst, with the bluster of “you furnish the pictures, and I’ll furnish the war,” are over. The media can’t dictate what we should consider newsworthy. Blaming the media for our tastes or lack thereof is like blaming a railway engine for traversing a path on rail lines laid by us.

The focus is inevitable. There are millions of Corona cases in the world, but everyone knows Boris Johnson. While the coverage might have caused discomfiture for his family, the fact that he got so sick and still got better highlights an important milestone in the public psyche.

Mental well-being is not as important as physical well-being; it is more important. Like Corona, it is hidden and that makes it dangerous. In India, there is a taboo about mental health diagnoses. That is true. Much needs to be done. The celebrated oh-so-humane Western world also came fairly late to this party. Till Pinel freed them, afflicted people were literally chained. Dr. Carpenter in the pre civil war USA thought that African Americans wanting to escape slavery were mentally ill. Freud’s, in our mind, is such ancient wisdom. Well, he was alive eight years prior to India’s independence. Even the legal defense to escape culpability for criminals who happened to be criminals was not available as late as 1843. A person attempting suicide can be prosecuted in India. Luckily, like most laws, this is a tradition more honored in its breach.

This is not the place to discuss the complex interplay of various etiological factors, but the external environment matters. Psychiatric disorders are sometimes simply classified as major and minor. For example, in minor, you feel you are God and are puzzled why you feel that way and seek help. In major, you feel you are God and are puzzled that you are not worshipped. It is all about insight and how intact it is. For most minor disorders, situational depressions, social anxieties, etc. an open, friendly, nurturing environment indeed helps.

People feel that life is fleeting. Why not make it more pleasant? Some morbid philosophers call ‘life a procession towards death’. Why not take it a little easy on fellow travelers?

What could we really achieve by being kinder, nicer, and gentler with each other? We don’t know, but we could find out. Together.