00:00This is Chinki, I'm the editor of Outlook magazine and for our Independence Day issue which is a
00:14special issue we decided to look at the stigma around mental illness in India and the kind of
00:21unfreedoms and freedoms, the people who are kind of having this issue. The cover is a very
00:29intriguing and it's a story actually that Vandana Gopi Kumar of the Banyan, who we collaborated
00:35with amongst other people for the issue, had told me long ago. She told me about this woman who fell
00:42in love with the elephant. In fact, she thought the elephant was love and then she drew this elephant
00:49on the wall in one of the Banyan centers and then she showed me the image and it was spectacularly
00:56beautiful in the way that how you know the mind works and how this lady tried to tell her story
01:05in her own vocabulary. So language was one which is something very political and the issue remains
01:12very political in terms of looking at policy, in terms of looking at gender, in terms of looking
01:17at caste, in terms of looking at all the intersections with mental health and of course we are becoming
01:24a society that's very lonely. We have the loneliness epidemic coming in and I think it's very important
01:33for a publication to look at mental health because I think that's something that we don't really look at
01:41in terms of coverage and we always go for stories that kind of are immediate and that's the nature of our
01:49business or rather which it has become the nature of our business. But Outlook, we now believe that
01:56we need to look at the society and things that kind of ails us and who we are and what we are becoming.
02:08And I think the title we kind of thought of too. One comes from Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama who actually
02:17lives in a mental asylum and is called The Queen of Polka Dots and the other one is from a film which I saw
02:24long ago and everybody I think knows this film. It's called The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and
02:29the other one is Every Day I Pray for Love. Because I think at the end of all the stories that we heard
02:35and our reporters went across India from Kashmir to Coimbatore to everywhere to look at stories of people who are
02:43living with it and people who are actually caregivers and spaces, you know, their life,
02:50their lived experiences, all kinds of things. And I think what we found in our journey across Ratnagiri
02:57and Chennai and all these places is that love was something very important, you know. And there was a
03:03moment when we were reporting a story in Ratnagiri in one of the homes that the Banyan runs under its
03:09home again project which is basically making people live together in a form of family and
03:15making them independent and kind of reintegrating them back into the society which is what we need.
03:20And you know so there was this lady Kamalini and you know she started narrating her story and she
03:27started crying and of course most of the time they couldn't record everything because it's something that
03:35not many people are comfortable with sharing. But there was a moment where she broke down and there
03:40were two other women from the same centre and one doesn't talk and nobody knows if she was born that
03:47way or if she became that way or she decided not to speak at all. And the other one speaks in
03:53broken sentences you know and she had no name. In fact her name in the state mental facility was
04:00number 28 and that's how she was known but they gave her a name Kajal and Kajal has a little cat
04:08Suneri and Kajal and this other woman just held Kamalini and they seemed to understand each other you
04:16know because I think all of them have gone through this acute abandonment and they know the pain they
04:23know the loss but they also know the value of being together and I think that became the focus of our
04:29stories you know what is it to be together what is it to love each other what is it to support each
04:34other and what is it to understand each other despite the limitations of language and I think
04:40grief is something that people usually cannot articulate very well there is no vocabulary I think
04:47language is limited in that sense and I think gestures you know they dance sometimes when they're
04:53they're in a happy mood it was a very beautiful experience very difficult also for us to go
04:58through all the things that we went through in terms of you know talking to them just hanging out and I
05:04think another thing was about you know this immediacy of things and I think one of the important things
05:11that we have learned in this issue is just that it's very important to just hang out you know just go to
05:17a place and kind of just sit and talk and I think that's very important and that helped us understand
05:24better we were not in a hurry and I think sometimes that ruins the story and a story needs to tell you
05:32something and I feel that this was a very important subject for us and I met Vandana last year she had
05:38invited me for a panel discussion in Chennai and I met four women over there which who had come from
05:44different centers of the banyan and to talk about their lived experiences and they're very very
05:50powerful narratives Amli, Jacqueline from Trichy, there was Sonal from Maharashtra and other people but
05:58I really was very fascinated by Sonal who came wearing a red dress and talked about love and she said that
06:03she wanted to get married she wanted to have a family and she lives in Ratnagiri at the Home Again project
06:11and then you know kind of she reconciled with the life that she has now with her new family and her
06:18friend Dipali who doesn't really talk much but both of them have become very good friends now and
06:24they understand each other and I think Sonal looks out for her friend and it's really beautiful to see
06:29the innocence and the strength of these friendships that they have formed so I think that's one way to go
06:34about framing the mental health policy in India and looking towards a different approach you know which
06:43includes caregiving which includes support which which also looks at assimilation and integration
06:48in the society and not really abandoning these people or isolating them or kind of like looking at
06:56them as unproductive which is what the capitalist ideology has taught us that productivity is the
07:03main thing you know in order to be deserving of a certain kind of lifestyle you have to be productive
07:09you have to work you have to produce you have to do this that all kinds of things and this whole
07:14emphasis on individualism is also something that we kind of critique I'm not criticizing it but I'm just
07:21saying that community-based healthcare you know community-based care approach I think is very
07:26important you know and we witnessed it and I think it was the act of witnessing all of this and
07:32looking at stories from a different lens like for instance the story of the two Noida sisters many
07:39many many years ago and I was one of the reporters who had covered it and I had gone to the hospital there
07:44were two sisters living in an apartment building in Noida and after a lot of stench started coming from
07:51their apartment the police broke into the house and one of the sisters was dead and the other one
07:56was alive and in the hospital and I went to the hospital and spoke to her a little bit you know
08:02and the whole story was that both of them felt abandoned their dog had died their brother had left
08:07after his marriage parents had died both of them just gave up and I think the neighbors never knew
08:13because obviously we now live in such apocalyptic times that we really don't know each other and we don't
08:18want to know each other interactions have become very limited we are always on our phones and things
08:23like that so yes one of them had passed away the other told me that they had shared hallucinations
08:28they heard the same voices and it was a very very very intriguing story about urban loneliness and I
08:33think the things that you cover the things that you witness also all of it comes together when you try and
08:41uh bring out an issue uh which deals with this and with this issue we are only trying to create a
08:47little bit of empathy I think that's what we're losing by the day um just a little bit of understanding
08:53from readers you know who who will read and I hope will share these stories and I I also want and I
08:59would request everybody who wants to share their stories of grief of loss of uh you know their battle with mental
09:07illness their uh stories of overcoming it their stories of living with it uh or taking care of
09:12somebody who has an issue with uh mental illness I think uh we would love to uh incorporate those
09:19stories because I think a lot of grief gets weakened by sharing you know stories and I think I still
09:25I believe that storytelling is one of the most powerful uh things still in this world and uh
09:31Vandana Gopi Kumar, Lakshminar Simhan and Sanjeev Jain of Nimhans and Vandana and Lakshmi work with the Banyan
09:37they are our guest editors for this issue uh because we believe in collaboration we don't
09:41believe in working in silos because some of the things we don't understand and we need help
09:45to understand and for people to guide us in the right direction and we have worked really hard
09:51on this issue and I hope people will read it and understand the challenges the support the lack of
09:57support rather and the kind of support that's coming in and to kind of look at the freedom you
10:02know the essential freedom from the stigma that surrounds uh mental illness and I think that would
10:08go a long way in you know helping us become better human beings in in terms of uh you know reaching out
10:15to the other people uh my uncle had uh this issue and he passed away and uh saying Vandana that I wish
10:21I had known that Banyan existed at the time and you know he could have uh been alive today a lot of people
10:27have also asked me why this issue the issue is simply there because it needs to be there I think
10:33we need to continue to tell these stories so that uh you know we don't uh become uh apathetic and we
10:41don't uh stop caring for others and um yeah so please uh read the issue and uh also contribute uh please
10:49share your lived experiences we are going to run this campaign uh for awareness uh for a whole year so it
10:56would be great if we can share stories with each other because it helps to alleviate a lot of grief
11:02and become strong uh so yeah thank you so much
