Good morning my fellow mood swingers!
I think my readers accept the fact that as your friendly neighbourhood columnist, I say it as it is! A well-known healer (I’d like to call him a therapist, though he abhors the word), once told me that not taking any type of ‘bovine excrement’ (I am being polite) and fighting (quite vociferously) for something blatantly unjust, has been pre-programmed into my DNA. Since it fed into my martyr complex I was quite chuffed with what he said, until I discovered some not so likeable traits about myself.
I understood that when my healer held up a mirror of introspection up to my face, I didn’t always like the reflection that stared back at me. We are so caught up into a ‘looking good’ web of our own making that it is sometimes quite difficult to puncture a hole in that scenario.
That is why we suffer ghosts from our past and present, develop fears and complexes and torture our minds and tie it into knots rather than admit we have a mental illness and need help.
Just this morning I encountered my portly neighbour on our foyer. We exchanged inane pleasantries and with some casual neighbourly chit-chat… which involved a detailed medical diagnosis about his hemorrhoids and the state of his rectum!
He explained in detail how he had managed to procure himself a seating ring from Singapore even during these difficult times, to give relief to his 'heynus' (his word not mine)! All this really 'intimate' casual conversation in the foyer was deemed perfectly natural, but, when I jokingly stated that staying locked in during the lockdown has made us all a little crazy he looked veritably shocked at the suggestion.
Immediately he retorted that he kept his family in line by being positive and doing ‘mindful works.’ He implied that depression was a foreign concept touted by psychiatrists to mislead the youth. His remedy was to be silent and pray to a higher power. The ‘higher power’ I understood but the ‘stay silent’ troubled me. Here is a man who would discuss the inner working of his private parts with me but refused to acknowledge that mental-health issues exist!
A dangerous trend has overtaken our country and it is another virus that is insidiously threatening to hijack logical minds. Take the number one topic of discussion in our country today. I’ve had inquiries from Bollywood aficionados from overseas too, wanting the inside scoop regarding the tragic death (suicide) of a handsome actor.
Another actor (a curly haired vixen with the dubious credit for having a fascination for married men), and who is obviously connected with an ultra-right-wing political party, has cleverly cast aspersions in the press and social media (the Gods’ of truth!).
She has cast unfounded accusations, baying for the blood of big names in the industry, settling personal scores and somehow illogically tying them into what she calls the ‘murder’ of this young man! She is ably joined by an ‘anchor’ that is a one-man judge and jury, who calls people on his show and does not allow them to get a word in!
How ironical, that both these individuals play into their political masters hands, bullying their foes and accusing them of being ‘anti-national’ when they are busy pitting Indians against each other! They have has done the ultimate unpardonable sin of playing into a political party’s hands by shifting the focus from the devastation our country is going through, pilfered funds, total apathy, the lack of medical facilities, justification for playing the religious card and total disregard for the average Indian dealing with sickness, death and economic ruin. My people ask for justice for a suicide and a CBI inquiry on my tax- money…yet no one asks for justice or an inquiry for the millions of migrant labourers… my people who languished and perished.
This… is my India!