When Outlook Editor Chinki Sinha was asked, “Why this issue on Freedom from Stigma of Mental Illness?” she said, “We want to show, not tell. We want people to write their own stories, that is also freedom, when you have no shame about what happened to you.”
Some of the questions this Independence Day issue has raised, Dr. Vandana Gopikumar, the co-founder of The Banyan, says, “came from a real place — and I think that’s what you need, not the jargon, not the mystifications. Many of the articles are based on lived experience.”
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#MentalHealth #MentalHealthAwareness #MentalIllness #Stigma
Some of the questions this Independence Day issue has raised, Dr. Vandana Gopikumar, the co-founder of The Banyan, says, “came from a real place — and I think that’s what you need, not the jargon, not the mystifications. Many of the articles are based on lived experience.”
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#MentalHealth #MentalHealthAwareness #MentalIllness #Stigma
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NewsTranscript
00:00In mental health and in psychiatry, which is an inexact science, we're informed by lived experience.
00:06So how can you let go of the stories that actually are informing science?
00:23Hi, we are with Vandana Gopikumar of the Banyan.
00:26And we have collaborated with the Banyan for the Independence Day issue.
00:32And we have been wanting to do this for a long time.
00:34And we wanted to take mental health as the issue.
00:38And we learned a lot.
00:39We met her last October.
00:40And that's when we kind of floated this idea.
00:42And they have been very, very helpful to Outlook and to journalists who didn't understand much about mental health, terminology, vocabulary, the ideas, the problems.
00:52And for a lot of us, it has been a great learning experience because a lot of our team, they came out with their own personal stories.
01:01And it's been very heavy, but it's been very, very, I don't know how to say this.
01:06Delightful is not the word.
01:07But it's also very delightful in the sense that we now know that there is hope.
01:13And I think on the basis of that, we have kind of gone forward with each and every story.
01:19All stories have been very disturbing, but also have been very, very hopeful.
01:23So, we came all the way to Chennai because Vadna keeps saying that she doesn't want to do an interview.
01:29So, now we have literally forced her.
01:31So, here she is the guest editor also for the issue along with others, Sanjeev Jain and Dr. Lakshminar Simhan.
01:39And they have kind of given us access to all their projects.
01:45And we have sent reporters everywhere to write the stories.
01:49And we just want to talk about how grave the issue is, what can be done, and how she goes about doing things.
01:56And also our own stories.
01:58I just think that for a publication to focus on the theme of mental health and in such depth is absolutely amazing.
02:10And I don't think there was any learning.
02:12I think there was cross-learning.
02:13Because when you talk mental health, you're really talking about life, right?
02:16I mean, there is the mind and then there's life.
02:19And it's really the mind that's at work and at play, right?
02:22So, I don't think there was any learning, but there were lots of questions.
02:25And what I found really interesting is that some of the questions that you asked came from a real place.
02:32And I think that's what mental health needs and mental health dialogues need.
02:35More real conversations.
02:37And not the jargons.
02:39Not the, you know, the mystification.
02:41The conversations between us have been real.
02:44And I think many of the articles that we've gotten also are based on lived experience.
02:48Because in a sense, I feel both me and Lakshmi, my colleague, as well as Sanjeev Jain, that as much as we're informed by biomedicine, by research, by research in the social sciences, equally and more importantly, in mental health and in psychiatry, which is an inexact science, we're informed by lived experience.
03:11So, how can you let go of the stories that actually are informing science?
03:16Exactly.
03:17So, that you've centered that in this issue and linked it to freedom and, you know, sort of plunged in with such depth.
03:24Amazing.
03:25Hats off.
03:25By the way, Vanna started Banyan 30 years ago and Vanna is very difficult to get.
03:30And we've been asking her to become our columnist for a long time and she's been dodging us.
03:34But anyway, she sent all these stories to us and about this lady who saw, who became friends with this elephant because she thought the elephant was love.
03:44And all these things that she was talking about at that point in time, we thought how great it would be to do these stories.
03:52But we didn't know how difficult also would it be.
03:55I don't know how they do it.
03:56Me and Romana went, I'm sure the other reporters also went through hell.
04:01But we went and we got so impacted, we couldn't sleep for days.
04:05And it's just a lot of this other side of the world that we really don't know.
04:09And the whole thing was also to create empathy.
04:11And Vanna should be speaking more about all of this, but also Vanna's bookshelf full of interesting books.
04:18And we have been photographing these books and kind of like getting them.
04:21And one of this is Yayoi Kusama.
04:24Who is, by the way, somebody that I've absolutely wanted to meet and I just wish we could because look at her and look at her courage that despite being rejected, right, for her art,
04:37she lived with a severe mental illness, went back, checked into a mental hospital, which really breaks the stereotype of what a mental hospital is and has worked on all her art in the mental hospital.
04:48And the whole proceeds go to the mental hospital.
04:50Absolutely.
04:51Which means there is no one story.
04:53See, that's the thing about mental health.
04:55I feel that we're caught in this web where there is so much of entanglement of political and social views, a small degree of wokeism, right?
05:06And then there's this whole science bubble and somehow the people who are affected with mental health issues and maybe not the privileged ones like you or I, but those who live on the margins.
05:18And in India, well, there's over 70 percent that lives on two dollars or less.
05:23So we're talking about the needs of those people, where between these spaces do they get entangled?
05:29Where do they find the voice to express their story, their response to either medication or to other therapeutic systems, right?
05:36So, yeah, yeah, no, you were talking about the elephant about lived experiences and about suffering.
05:42About the stories that you were looking at, you were finding and we wanted to also say that, you know, we visited with Vandana several of these places and met some of the people.
05:52And the sheer love, I think a lot of people discount love and look at a lot of things with the scientific thing and being very realistic, being very logical.
06:02But I think when we went with the same approach, we met this one woman and she was absolutely like she was writing poems for us.
06:11We just met her and I think it's just, I mean, if you just listen, I think, I don't know if it solves the problem, but I think it's very important too.
06:20And we saw this extreme like kind of bond with, and I don't know how you do it.
06:25If you can tell us about your experience and how you started Vandana and what you kind of like, what is your method of looking at things?
06:35Because it's very different. It's not something that we kind of know.
06:38So, you know, I don't think I have a method and I think that I depend a lot on just my spontaneous actions.
06:48And that's true of me in life. That's true of me at work, right?
06:52I'll just come to how we started, but going back to your point about the elephant in metaphors, right?
06:58Who in the world doesn't want to belong? Who in the world doesn't want love?
07:03Who in the world doesn't want a valued social role?
07:06Who in the world doesn't want to feel respected?
07:09And if you look at all of this, a valued social role, respected, being able to have a conversation,
07:17being able to trust, that is freedom.
07:20Right? So I think if you look at the lens that we use at the Banyan, or that many other collaborators
07:27and many other partners, and many of them also written and contributed to this issue,
07:32I think many of them use a, and I don't want to sound again like I'm using jargons,
07:37they use a justice lens. And the minute you use a justice lens, automatically it's about dialogues.
07:44It's about understanding. And when you attempt to understand, you go deeper into the life of the
07:48other person. And when you go deeper into the life of the other person, there is obviously a sense of
07:54whatever you refer to it as, you could refer to it as empathy, you could refer to it as a connection.
08:00When the person that you're speaking with sees that connection, or feels that connection,
08:06then the person senses intentionality. And when that intentionality is clear, then there is no looking
08:14back. There is that connection, you'll go through ups and downs, like all our relationships go
08:18through ups and downs, like yours, mine, everybody else's. But you will come back to that person,
08:23because there is that trust, there is realization of that intentionality. In today's world, I feel
08:29that is missing from psychiatry, that is missing from social work, mental health, social work in
08:34psychiatry, and from various therapeutic approaches, and therefore also in psychology, I feel to a certain
08:40extent. I'm not placing us on a pedestal, I don't think we do it uniformly. We fail very often, but I think
08:46there is a need for this. So the elephant that she spoke of is a symbol of love that was eluding her
08:52all her life. I feel one of the reasons that I'm able to connect with these stories is probably because
08:58of my own lived experience, right? So I live with bipolar disorder, and there are overlapping roles,
09:05right? So on the one hand, I'm a social scientist. On the other hand, I'm a clinical social worker.
09:12Then I'm the founder of an organization, therefore a social entrepreneur. But one of my identities is
09:19also that of a person living with madness and madness in a positive sense. And I think I've derived a lot,
09:25you spoke about despair, sorrow, and affection connection. So you've seen me here, and you've
09:31seen me that sometimes I'm really tired and dull and overstimulated. But the same situation
09:37in our centers, or in any center, even those of our partners. But I feel I'm able to have real
09:46conversations. So from the sense of suffering and despair, which is real, because one doesn't want
09:53to romanticize it, from the delusions, hallucinations, and the voices, from the social factors that precipitate
10:01all of this, from the triggers, whether they are caste, class, or gender related, from living on the margins,
10:09and from feeling you're part of a society, and yet feeling so alienated and part of a bubble. Somehow
10:15in those stories, and in that suffering, you find meaning, you find purpose, and you find real
10:22connections. I feel every conversation that I have most with people, especially when they are in their
10:28states, where they're a little unwell. I feel very connected to them. So it lifts my mood, because
10:34there's a sense of deep authenticity. Yeah, that is true. That we have seen. And I think one of your
10:39other identities, according to me, is that you are a friend. And I think the way Jessie takes care of
10:47you, or the people are just hugging you, and you know, it's actually, it's amazing to see. And we were,
10:53I don't know, we became fans instantly. And it's not okay for a journalist to say this, but we'll say it
10:58anyways. As have we become fans of all of you. Because, let me say this again. See, we've met
11:04many journalists, and many of them are engaged in issues of mental health, have reported, have volunteered,
11:11and have reported with similar sense of authenticity, and there's authenticity, and there's a
11:16good number of them. But what I found refreshing about you is, obviously when you come to a place,
11:21I mean, there's home again, which is like a house. Which is so beautiful, by the way. I mean,
11:25I wish I had known about it, because my uncle and, yeah, but one day you should finish it. And then,
11:30there was this question that was asked of us. Why did you, many people have asked,
11:36why did you decide to do this issue? And that will come to later. But if you want to finish,
11:40otherwise we are very uncomfortable with being complimented. No, I'll tell you a bit,
11:46I'll just, let me just finish it. I'll tell you why. So, when people, the first thing that comes to
11:53any human mind, it's not just a journalist, right? It's judgment. Yeah. Right? Okay, there's this,
11:58this, this. Oh, there was a little bit of a stink. There was a little bit of the clothes were like,
12:06a little, you know, droopy or whatever. So, so I think that judgment you guys left behind,
12:13and many other reporters also do. And they're able to see, you know, the larger sort of framework of
12:21care. To see care and not to place it in binaries of all mental hospitals are bad. A stink means bad.
12:29Every little thing means bad. And all care in the community is great. Now, this is a huge debate
12:35that's going on, right? I feel that it's somewhat flawed. Of course, we need to move away from large
12:40organizations where there are thousand people are locked in, no attention, no personal care,
12:45no exit pathways. Because the idea of madness is beyond that. The idea of mental health is really
12:52for, because all of us are affected by mental health issues, is to move beyond and to find your
12:57place in society and to live your life and to live your dream. And all of us are somewhere on the
13:01spectrum really. Yeah. So, those mental hospitals are absolutely not happening for all of us. But to
13:07accept the other, let's say, the lack of sophistication, you know, or the lack of an aesthetic
13:17that you would appreciate, right? And to allow for that diversity and to embrace it. I think it's a
13:25fabulous thing. And I'm saying this not, you know, because we're friends or because we're associated
13:30with this issue, but because it's important for everybody to be aware of this. And why is this
13:36important? Because when the British came long back, you know, and they worked on therapy, what did they
13:41see first? Oh, this person is a savage Indian. I mean, if you read many of the books and literature,
13:45you'll see that. And therefore, they need a separate hospital. And why? Because they didn't speak their
13:49language, because they didn't wear clothes the way that the British wore clothes, because they ate with
13:53their hands. So, things like cloth therapy emerged then as a form of therapy. So, when you, when I walk
13:59in, and this affects me also now, when I walk into, let's say, one of our centers, and I see somebody
14:04eating a little messily, a little differently from me, I'm not attributing it to their culture. I'm
14:10attributing it to mental health. And that, I think, again, is a flawed argument. There's so much in mental
14:15health that needs to be discussed about what self-care means. Is it about eating? How you look? How you
14:21communicate? How much of space do you allow for, you know, versions of you to appear and conversations?
14:30Right? So, yeah, anyway. No, so, a lot of people asked us that why we wanted to do this issue. I
14:36think the simple reason, and I thought, I don't know why. And then I went, I was thinking about it one
14:42night, and I remember that, you know, my uncle, I think, had schizophrenia. We didn't, we don't know,
14:48because it was very difficult at that point in time, in Bihar, in a slightly smaller city,
14:54to understand what was happening. But he would shut himself in a room. He was a brilliant doctor.
14:59I don't know what happened, and we don't know. But I remember that one particular afternoon,
15:03we had to hide under the bed because he was in some kind of, I don't know, manic episode. And he
15:09hit my aunt and my grandmother. And I think that led to another tragedy because my grandfather,
15:17my grandmother was taken to my uncle's house for treatment, and she passed over there. And
15:21my grandfather could never meet his wife again after that one incident that happened. And then
15:26my uncle passed away. And I was telling Gautami, who I met in Ratnagiri, that, you know, had I known that
15:32Vandana at the time or something, you know, like that there was a place like this for people. My uncle
15:37would be alive today. I was not very close to my uncle. I just observed him, like, he would talk to
15:44himself, he would not come out, he wouldn't take a shower for days. But only now I realize that some
15:48things that you witness in your childhood or wherever, and you don't process it, and you don't
15:53understand it, I think it comes back to keep haunting you. And something similar happened to my other
15:59uncle on this other side. And I think maybe I was looking for answers. And I think a lot of people
16:05in our outlook also were looking for answers. And there's a very powerful piece by Apeksha, who writes
16:13about her father and her mother's struggle. And you know, you talk about judgment, and I think,
16:19firstly, I think we should be learning from you how to suspend all judgment, because I'm very judgmental
16:23otherwise. But I feel that when you look at the struggles of people and caregivers, I think
16:30that was very difficult for me to accept that, how do you abandon people, right? How do you,
16:34but then you also understand that people do. I mean, like, when we heard stories in Ratnagiri,
16:39you can't blame the other. And I think that happens with, and so for us, I think,
16:48Roman, our creative director and my friend, he had a difficult time processing all this. And I don't
16:53think I have processed any of this yet, because we've been so busy. But I just had to do one
16:58question. And I've been asking Mandana this, how do you do it day in and day out?
17:03I don't know, you know, in a sense, I feel that not just me, the Banyan was founded by
17:09Vaishnavi Jaikumar, my partner and I, if it went for her, if it went for her giving up on her management
17:16and, you know, sort of a management degree and joining me, and all her strength and encouragement
17:21right to now and her knowledge, she's a disability activist, she continues to engage with the Banyan
17:26as well. I don't think I would have been able to do it. So I think it was, the start was really
17:31a combination of friendship, the need to solve complex problems, because we came in contact
17:35with this woman outside our college who was gesticulating, she was, you know, didn't have a
17:39stitch of clothing, was gesticulating wildly. And by then I had enrolled into my master's in clinical
17:46social work. And I knew that these were, you know, somewhat symptoms of psychosis, maybe schizophrenia.
17:52And when we tried admitting her, the government didn't have a system to care for her. NGOs did,
17:58but they went, you know, robust enough. And I realized now that there is no system that is robust
18:02enough. So yes, your uncle, I'm sorry that you to go through that, may have found a place in the Banyan,
18:08may have found a place in many other fabulous centers, governmental, non-governmental,
18:12that operate today, but also may not have found a solution out. Like,
18:18No, he was chained and taken to Raj Chikake. I remember that my father would drive the car,
18:25but it would relapse. He would come because I think what he was able to understand, I think.
18:30And that is true, Chinki. So it's like mental health is a condition, especially severe mental
18:35illnesses, right? So you have common mental disorders, anxiety, depression, and you have severe
18:39mental disorders. And nobody is, we are nobody really to compare the extent of suffering. Also
18:44amongst the privileged and those who are less privileged, right? Because suffering is suffering.
18:50But what a certain kind of suffering, like this person who was abused by her, sexually abused by her
18:56father, who was a priest. And then the girl who was young then, 14, gave birth to a child.
19:03And the child had to be handed over in adoption. She never got over it, because it was her father
19:09whom she trusted. All of us were just talking about my father, who was going through dementia,
19:14right? Imagine a person that you look to for comfort, violating your body and your emotions every
19:22day till you get pregnant. The mother being a mute spectator, because you don't want to question.
19:27These are the injustices that you talk about, right? And then the girl delivering and having to hand over
19:32her baby, then she goes through the trauma and guilt of that. She's not able to balance her father,
19:37the good man, and the father who violated her. And she ends up with such deep trauma that even today,
19:4330 years after the incident, she sleeps only under the bed, because that's her space of safety. That's
19:49where she used to go to hide, right? To prevent the incident from occurring. Now, these deep traumas,
19:55where do you find answers? So she goes through a period when she's really all right, smiling,
20:00speaking to us. Then she goes through another period where she's actually speaking to a father,
20:04but she's projecting. And therefore, she's speaking to us as if we are the father. And she's saying,
20:09you rascal, how could you have done this to me? Don't you have shame, right? So she's asking all the
20:16questions that she would have asked her father to us. And these are deep questions. These are painful for
20:22her and very painful for us, because it's such an erosion of trust, or something that's such a beautiful
20:30relationship that's just gone, that's just faded. And she's not able to come to terms with it. We
20:35later met the father who was arrested for this in the prison because she wanted to. She made peace.
20:40And look at her. I mean, you call people like her, you know, as a person living with a mental health
20:46issue. She actually made peace with him. She went, she spoke, she came back, she was okay for a while,
20:52and her father died after that. But despite making peace, it's not like her going under the bed,
21:00or her projections, or her going back to that memory, or her letting go of the fact that she
21:07gave up on her child and she loves children. All that is gone, one shot. So now tell me,
21:13if this hadn't happened, would the neural connections have been different? How much is it in the brain?
21:19How much is it in society? Is the mind disordered? Is the brain disordered? Is society disordered?
21:26It's a combination of all. And we have to be open to that. So this hierarchy, which I think, you know,
21:32we've sort of spoken about, there is a role for psychiatrists, and it's a very important role.
21:37There's a role for, you know, people from the neurosciences, and that's a very important role. And all
21:42that research is very valid and very relevant. But how much of that research is actually translated to
21:50tackle this person's issue? Exactly. Or your uncle's issue? Yeah. Or, let's say, the other
21:55person, I'm not taking names, the other person who sees, you know, who was abused again by her
22:01caregiver, who didn't have parents, and who comes back now and says, no, maybe you're a duplicate,
22:07maybe you're a duplicate. So her whole life has gone. She lost her husband, she's lost so much of
22:12her life. She's, that basically, she looks back and says that I'm gone, my beauty is gone, my life's
22:18gone, my youth is gone, everything is gone. So I think the translation, we have progressed,
22:21not like we haven't, we have progressed. There are rules, there's a legislation,
22:25mental hospitals are becoming slower, there are more centers of care, the treatment gap is still
22:30at 85%, which is still high. And that's probably because we're not looking at mental health from using
22:35a lens of justice, distress, what you said, which is very undervalued, kindness, and deep connections,
22:42and are allowing for it to be reductionist in spaces that are probably seen as more hard skills
22:49and hardcore than therapy, biomedicine, all necessary. But if society doesn't change,
22:57and if society continues to be disordered, I worry for our future.
23:00Yeah, I'm very worried. But I think there's a lot of hope that we saw. There was another thing that
23:07we learned is also to give people agency, like how you guys do it at the Banyan. We also realized that
23:14sometimes we become very self-centered and want to do everything ourselves. But we also tried and
23:19asking and ask people to write their own stories. And it was so easy, actually, because we are so afraid of
23:26asking questions. And it could just come from a place of curiosity, like we met this lady in
23:32Kobalam. And she just agreed to write her story. And she sent a story, beautifully written, very simple.
23:39And I thought that was also freedom to be able to get to a point of that agency, where you have no shame,
23:49talking about how you felt when something happened to you. And I think that's very brave. I think
23:55a lot of us don't talk about things that have occurred to us. And I think that's one thing,
24:00one learning that we've had. And we saw it also in our office when people are reading stories.
24:05They are coming and talking to us about their issues. And I think that's something very beautiful.
24:11And we still haven't been able to grapple with it. Huge, huge learning chinky. At the bottom.
24:18Okay, it's beautiful. At the bottom of much of this distress, right? Both for the caregiver,
24:24this is from both ends, both for the caregiver and for the person who's experiencing distress,
24:29right? Are these emotions of shame, rejection, alienation, and humiliation. So I feel that when
24:38people experience a mental health issue, they experience all of this. So if we have to tackle,
24:43and especially in social work, I feel that we're so undervalued. We're trying to morph sometimes
24:49clinical social workers into psychologists or psychologists into psychiatrists. So I just feel
24:55we should retain, you know, that spirit and explore these emotions of shame, humiliation, feeling
25:03alienated. What you said is so true. It's bang on. And forget about people with mental health issues.
25:08Look at society. Why are we, what is relative poverty, right? Or what is relative well-being?
25:14This person is like this, I'm not. That person is like this, what will society say? My daughter is
25:20not doing well or hasn't gotten into an exam. So put pressure on the child. Look at the number of
25:26deaths by suicide in our country, right? 15 to 29, 39. Why? I mean, there's a lot of, of course,
25:32exam stress. But many of it are also to do with relationships. A lot. Right? And, and erosion
25:38of relationships. And I think beneath all of that is this layer of feeling rejected, humiliation, shame.
25:44So our take at the Banyan, and I think in many other places, is to, of course, look at all the other
25:51things. There are people, there are specialists who are looking at those. But as social scientists,
25:54look at these emotions. Look at the roles that they play. Draw from them and from lived experience and
25:59these stories that you're talking about and integrate it into care plans for God's sake.
26:03Yeah. Right? Because otherwise what happens is you have the world saying, she is too much,
26:10especially when the person is not fitting into your, uh, box and template of well-mannered,
26:19speaking with a certain tone, not abrasive, not strident, right? So you have these qualities that you
26:27think because the social norms are brilliant. And therefore, if you fit into that, you're better
26:32accept it. If you speak in a certain language, you better accept it. If you come from, I mean,
26:37your positionalities influence the way in which you're received. Yeah. Right? So I, I just feel that
26:43if for a moment we would suspend all of that, and if you wouldn't think of this person as too much,
26:48and learn how to accept all of a person, of course, not fully, because it's not possible for all of us to
26:54do that. And sure, in your mind, you say, and then to the person you say, I'm finding this a little
26:58difficult, this a little problematic. Oh, come on, because you're friends and you say it and you
27:02say it in a real way, but you don't judge and you don't alienate the person because the person is
27:07quote unquote too much or not fitting into your template or, uh, is, uh, you know, like you mentioned
27:16earlier, uh, seen as, um, somebody who has a story that's different from you, because I feel that we've
27:23begun to focus a lot more on separateness and that's the human mind. So because there is separateness,
27:29you other. Yeah. And actually, if you look at all the, you know, especially young, young, Carl Young,
27:35young, the people refer to him as young. So, uh, about this collective consciousness, all of us are
27:43connected, all of us feel similarly. We have similar emotions, similar feelings, but we have learned to
27:49disconnect, to separate ourselves from each other. And if only we wouldn't do that, we'd also experience
27:55freedom in a similar way. If you don't separate on the basis of caste, gender, class, too much, too
28:01little. Yeah. That is true. And this whole thing about dark and light that we've often talked about,
28:08uh, the other, see, when we were doing, uh, this issue, we realized that, okay, apart from the lived
28:14experiences, which kind of form a big part of this issue, because it's important to kind of,
28:19one of my journalism professors long ago said, show, don't tell. So we didn't want to tell anything.
28:23We just wanted to show it. Uh, the other thing is, uh, the way that we wanted to go about it was also
28:31to kind of look at all the many people who are working in the field and kind of take their perspectives.
28:37And, uh, I mean, we are very grateful again, because we didn't know so many people. And
28:41Bandha introduced me to this lady, Tanya. She has written a beautiful piece about the mother and
28:46the daughter experience, uh, in terms of caregiving. And I think when you look at their lives, you feel,
28:52oh my God, this person went through this much and they're still so alive, you know, and, and so,
28:58um, so it's been very, uh, uh, whatever for, I mean, it's great for us to have done the issue, but
29:05so very exhausting for us. But I think, um, uh, we wanted Bandha to also talk about this, uh,
29:12role of collectives. I think when we, when we came into Outlook, we also wanted to not, uh,
29:19exclude things like, for example, poetry, fiction, a lot of people would say poetry is not journalism.
29:24Then what is actually journalism? I mean, journalism should be also about taking other people and not
29:30basically excluding them. If, when I first met Vandana, I was like, okay, no, this is not, uh,
29:37something that we can do alone. And I think when you can take people along, I think it becomes
29:42very, very, uh, interesting and also, uh, very, uh, you have to be curious about things. And I think
29:48a lot of curiosity of ours got addressed, uh, when we, so also about the collective approaches,
29:54because you guys also do the same thing, you know, we saw in Ratna Giri, how, uh, there's a collective
29:58spirit, you know, you have, you can talk a little bit about home again and how you have the people
30:05there participating, you know, it's, it's also this whole spirit of participation. And I think that's
30:10very important. Like, you know, uh, somebody comes to your house and they make coffee. So they have some
30:15sense of ownership, right? So how did you get to this model? How did you think about this?
30:21So, uh, so, you know, every model of the Banyan has been a response to a particular situation.
30:28The first, I told you, the lady that we met alone, right, in a bubble, uh, and all of society
30:34passing her by. And that happens even today, right? Now, this happened when people at the Banyan,
30:42so some of them get better, go back home and then, or go back to a job. And there are many,
30:48right, who get better because fortunately, the medical approach works, biomedicine works,
30:54and for many it's worked. And therefore they've gotten better, gone back home, gone back to their
30:57families, um, pursued their goals. And there are, uh, people who are pure advocates. There are people
31:04running programs, uh, of ours. There are people who are working in other organizations. There are
31:09people running canteens. There are people who are beauticians. There are people, uh, who are researchers.
31:14So there's a whole lot of people. There's me, who's running an organization. There's my partner,
31:18Vaishnavi, who also lives with a mental illness, who's running, who's a disability, a disability
31:22activist and also running the Banyan, right. And within the Banyan, 32% of people live with mental
31:28health issues. That is our workforce, right. So, um, I think this group that then couldn't go back home
31:37because home was the, like the instance I told you, was the place of stress and trigger. So everybody
31:43thinks home, family means positive, right. But it's not always true. That can be the source of
31:49distress. Community can be the source of distress, right. So community can be extremely judgmental
31:55as much as a mental hospital, right. So you have community, you have society, you have home.
31:59They said, we can't go back home. We don't feel comfortable working and living alone. So we need the
32:05idea of hostels or need the idea of home-like spaces. So the idea was not ours. The idea was that of the
32:11people that we served at the Banyan, who needed that space. But you took that idea because how many
32:16of us have actually accepted, and that's what I'm talking about when it becomes participatory,
32:22from this whole position of Upanisha, if you go, you know, I think, equal relationships, I think.
32:29And those hierarchies were automatically flattened because we have a lot of friendships. So here we,
32:34you know, we break a lot of rules in our therapeutic practice. At least I do. Let me speak for myself.
32:39I break a lot of rules. And I don't believe in too much in the concept of boundaries. Of course,
32:43I will protect myself if I feel it's getting too much. But I form friendships with my, with the
32:48people that I work with, my quote-unquote clients or mental health service users. I think those
32:53friendships are beautiful. I think I've gained a lot from the friendships. I don't know if the others
32:57have. I'd like to think that they have. We have a lot of fun. So this group of friends got together
33:02and said, let's attempt it. First time it didn't work very well. Second time it worked beautifully. And who's
33:06running our most successful home again? Two sisters. One of them who lost both our husbands,
33:12one after the other. One to suicide and the other to an accident, right? Who lived with depression.
33:17And the other sister who was locked in a village in a little thatched hut with the food being
33:23shoved from under the, you know, that thatched whatever door. And she was in the nude inside.
33:29She was eating that because the village didn't know how to deal with it. Not because they hated her,
33:33not because they wanted to alienate her, but because they simply didn't know what to do with her,
33:37right? And they did try faith healing. They tried hospitals. None of them worked because their
33:44primary caregivers had died. So their parents had died. And then both came to us and they did,
33:51and the sister's a nurse. So what a beautiful combination of this person who's naturally an
33:56entrepreneur. The, the first person who lives with depression. And the other person,
34:00the sister who lives with bipolar disorder with psychosis, who's a nurse. And they said that
34:06we want to go back to our village and we want to set this up. So this is a perfect time for us to
34:10take this idea and take it to scale. Yeah. And we also had Grand Challenges Canada, Rural India
34:14Supporting Trust, Sazeem Premji Foundation, many partners. So that's why the collective,
34:18it's not us, it's the government, it's the community, it's people with lived experience,
34:23it's foundations such as these who believe that everybody has an equal right
34:29to life. And to dignity, I think. And to dignity, absolutely. And to the sort of freedoms and
34:34capabilities that Martha Nussbaum talks about, right? So play, bodily integrity, social connections,
34:42all of that, right? All the capabilities she talks about and the functioning that she talks about are
34:47exactly what we are attempting to, in a very simple way, but that's it. And most complex ideas have,
34:54you know, simple foundations, but very profound foundations, right? And they're expressed in ways
35:00that they are, but they seep into every program almost not naturally, without your even thinking
35:06that it's actually on the basis of this foundation of that framework. And Amli and Jacqueline have, I mean,
35:10these sisters have made such a fabulous, fabulous setup in Trichy that I think it should be a role
35:17model for peer advocates globally, because most of the knowledge is taken from the Global North.
35:22Most of the models are from the Global North. Now, will Amli and Jacqueline be sitting in the,
35:26on the UN and find a seat there? No, but they should be, because their reality is different from a
35:33service user from the Global North. They will talk about also the importance of medicines.
35:38They will, in very real ways, talk about the distress that they experience.
35:42They will talk about rights, but they won't talk about it in absolute terms, because they've seen
35:46rights, you know, sort of evolve and take shape in different ways and forms. So they won't say
35:53institution and community and they won't be that judgmental, because I feel their wisdom,
35:57their knowledge and their experience, the extent of their social suffering is far more. So the UN,
36:02the Global North and scientists need to take people with lived experience from the Global South in
36:10ways that matter, and we cannot be their gatekeepers or their representatives. It has to be them,
36:15and it cannot be in a patronizing way, where you say, huh, take them and I will also be there. Oh,
36:19how good this person did so well. Of course the person will do well. The person's gone through
36:24some 100x suffering and 100x life that you have. So you have so much to learn.
36:31Yeah, you have so much to say also. So much to say also. So I think this idea of the collaboration
36:36with the community, with panchayats, with a lot of fostering from people. And so you have,
36:42obviously, look at Chinki, it's a simple experiment, right? The person is here,
36:45the neighbour comes, the neighbour says, after a while, and the neighbour feels, you know, oh,
36:50this is a nice lot. The child comes, the child sits on Amelie's lap or who's ever, ABC's lap.
36:56Then there's natural reactions, reactions that we never saw.
36:59And more reactions, which are very important.
37:02Very similar. So Lily looks at me and all her life, she'd been asking,
37:07when do we go to the beach? That was the only thing she would ask. When I went,
37:10you know, when she moved to home again, she said, oh, I like your nose. Look at the colour of the,
37:15and this is, the only intervention is housing and supportive services. By supportive services,
37:20it's community inclusion, participation, and the idea of a valued social role, whatever that may be.
37:26So obviously, if you are part of a community, your experiences expand. And the more your
37:32experiences expand, the more your understanding of life, understanding of self, and the more the
37:37ability to participate increases. And that is important. That's the way to go.
37:40Yeah, I think it's very important. And I think the one sentence that came to me all the time when I was
37:47doing the stories. I mean, it was not even about doing the stories. I think it was just about
37:52going there and seeing something, right? I mean, and I had never seen anything like this before.
37:57It was this Ernest Hemingway quote, grace is courage under pressure, or courage is grace under pressure,
38:03either of the two. But I think they were extremely grateful. And I thought it is one big lesson
38:11for all of us who indulge in this othering behavior, with a lot of it going on politically,
38:15look at Gaza, look at everywhere else. And I think some time ago, we decided that we're not going to
38:23be into under this pressure of not speaking up, because that's what we're supposed to do.
38:29Despite the consequences, it's okay. But I feel that that was something that we thought was extremely,
38:35extremely, extremely, extremely graceful. And if we, like for instance, there was a temple or a shrine
38:42that we saw in one of the houses in Ratnagiri. And it was so beautifully done. There was this
38:48broodwara, there was a cross, there was a crescent-shaped moon, I think it was a masjid or some
38:54dargah. And then there was this Ganeshji and Krishna or something. And I thought that it was some,
39:02it was a kind of secularism that people talk about. But look at them, look at the people who
39:08are living in these houses, a Brahmin woman living with a Muslim woman who is cooking. And it's just
39:15very amazing how all of these other things have come in. You know, it's not just about,
39:21I mean, I felt, I mean, we saw it like that. Takes a sharp mind to understand that. So that's our
39:26macro perspective, right? We're hoping that with our entry into communities, right, all these barriers
39:34of who's living in the house, right? Who's living in the house, their backgrounds, none of that is
39:41questioned. So there's so much of social mixing. Similarly, a person with a mental health issue keep
39:46talking about stigma, stigma campaigns, thousands and millions of dollars have been invested into
39:51stigma campaigns. How do you work? Simple answer. Look at mixing. Look at the simplicity of this
39:57shrine. That's it. Just social mixing. You mix with community, mix with people, get people together,
40:03like you said. I mean, look at that collective energy around the idea of, I mean, you may or may not believe
40:08in God, you may not believe in, you know, formal systems of religion, but in some way that offers
40:16them hope. And therefore you have to look at what everything that offers them hope, right? And but
40:20it's all come together and there's collective energy there. Yeah. And that's fabulous. And what is hope?
40:25And now as we're studying, more and more we're understanding. See, hope studies say that typically if
40:29you have a goal and if you have the means to achieve it, you feel hopeful, right? But if you feel that
40:34this is my goal and it could be any goal, it could be, you know, finding a partner, it could be setting
40:39up an enterprise, it could be an outing and just living or education. I mean, living is a large thing,
40:45right? So all these things, Kuti Kuti goals, Kuti Kuti means small, small goals, but the way in which
40:53you are able to achieve those and if you have the agency to achieve those and the means to achieve those,
40:58you feel a little more hopeful. Where do all our people lose out that the means to achieve even these
41:03simple goals? Sometimes there's a problem. So mental health has to broaden its discourse.
41:08It has to open it, mental health and all the discourse around mental health has to open up.
41:13It has to move beyond psychiatry, beyond clinical social work, beyond psychology and involve philosophy,
41:19involve and integrate hugely lived experience. So sociology, society and just pure common sense,
41:27I think, where you're able to bring in the multi-dimensionality of all the things that happen
41:37and look at what works and what doesn't and then integrate that into your weather care plans or
41:44weather care approaches or whatever else with no one model. There's no home again, no banyan,
41:50no Ishwar Sankalp, no Anjali, no government hospital, no nimhans can solve all the problems.
41:57No. Right? So it's you obviously need to be a collective, which is why you said there's so many
42:02amazing people who come together in your issue, all of whom have written about their own experiences.
42:07It just so happens that we are sitting here that Sanjeev Jain has worked with us in this and he obviously
42:13has such humongous experience and therefore he's contributed, Lakshmi, Dr. Kishore, so many people,
42:18Archana. So we've come together, but there is a, you know, there are IAS officers who are here who
42:25are talking about what they have done in your issue. Exactly, anybody is learning. Yeah, there are other
42:29NGOs like Ashadip in the northeast, what they have done. There's SA in the west, what they have done.
42:34Anjali and Ishwar Sankalp in the east, what they have done. In the south, Mehak, what they have done.
42:39Chalamutu Trust, so many people who are doing such amazing work. SCAF, I mean all these people have,
42:47ILS, so all these people, Sangat, all these people have come together and I think each is a care
42:52approach, each is a model. And each is a resistance. And each is a resistance and I don't think anybody
42:57can say this is it, this is the best because that's the nature of mental health. Care fluidity has to be
43:03a part of a mental health protocol. So you cannot say protocols have to be strict and they are in these
43:08boxes and this is how it rolls out because that's not how the mind is. It has to be need adapted,
43:13it has to be person-centered and for it to be that there has to be fluidity and therefore you have to
43:17let go of your ego a little. I think all of us professionals and say that it is not my model,
43:23it is not one model, it is not proving I'm right, it is not my paper that is published, it is not me in
43:30an interview with you, it is not about how much we've achieved, it is about how much there is to achieve,
43:36how many injustices we have to deal with, how much more research is needed in all fields with
43:41no field being lesser or more and with those hierarchies being flattened. If we have that
43:45cultural and intellectual humility, mental health discourse and advancement in mental health sciences
43:51will be far superior to what it is where today because it is still in a competitive space,
43:57we are not going deep down, granular level information and data aren't there, integration of
44:02lived experience isn't significant. No that is true and I think my, I talked to my mother about
44:10like everything, just telling her that we went here and she was very worried that you know like how are
44:15you going to deal with it but I think if my mother was really happy about us doing this issue and going
44:20through all these experiences I think this is my job done and the simple thing was to show and not tell.
44:27So we wanted, we want readers to read these stories I mean it may be very depressing and very sad and
44:34what's happened in our office people are crying and all but I feel that it's important to confront
44:38it and I think people like Vandana they confront it every day and still find hope and I think I read
44:43somewhere in one book I remember all these things from books that hope is your worst enemy but I think
44:47hope is also your best friend and I think when Ghalib said that umid pe dunia kaya mein or something like this,
44:53I think this is what holds the world and we request everyone to kind of uh read the stories read the
45:02issue not because we have done it and not because it's about whatever it's because it's about people
45:08people who uh will live with people who we see at the train stations a lot of that stuff also and
45:13the kind of despair and sorrow people go through and yet they keep living and I think that's uh and
45:18also we have decided to volunteer at the banyan and I think everybody should and um I think we can
45:25all contribute uh in whatever ways if there's an old age home please go volunteer please just go spend
45:30time with people I think time is the biggest investment that we can make now and Vandana does
45:34it and we have learned uh this uh from her and for I mean and I really mean it and I think it's been a
45:40very humbling experience uh for us because uh we have been welcomed into your life been welcomed into your
45:47space and at the banyan nobody like kind of even questioned us once why are you here and we are
45:52roaming around with cameras and everything and um some of the stories uh I I can say I won't be able
45:58to write also because not everything is to be written and things are supposed to be felt and I hope with
46:05whatever we have tried to do with this Independence Day a lot of people said how can you uh do this
46:10issue for Independence Day I think the narrative is to also uh celebrate the other side thank you so
46:17much not at all not at all chinky and since you ended on that very hopeful note um I mean to all the
46:25readers read stories and yes share it with your mother share it with others and besides all the stories
46:32that we spoke about you did speak about Tanya and her mother similarly we have Ibrahim and Ibrahim's story
46:38where Ibrahim's mother came to us in shackles and uh from you know her being in shackles to getting a
46:45little better to going all the way back to Ajmer and then not having any food to eat and then coming
46:52back with her mother and with Ibrahim who was then four he is now 23 and he's short he works with PC
47:01Sri Ram a cinematographer he shot an ad with Shah Rukh Khan and Amitabh Bachchan he has shot another film
47:11with Maddy but that's not why I value or love him I love him because he said that I will use my lived
47:17experience along with many others like Samya Vicky you met many of them Preeti who are all in their own way
47:24forming a support group for other children because often what happens when the mother is unwell uh and
47:31there are ups and downs and of course the mother is also playing the role of the care provider right
47:35everybody with a mental health issue is also a caregiver I'm a caregiver right I may be living
47:40with a severe mental illness but I am a caregiver and that happens in most cases the extent may vary
47:45so in this particular case it's lovely that this group of kids these kids have gotten together
47:51and they're using various ways in which they can reach out to other kids who are going through
47:55similar situations where their parents the family there's a lot of I mean they're seeing violence
48:02sometimes they're seeing the way in which their mother is being treated they're seeing the mother's
48:07ill health in some cases can be really bad but they're rising about that and are holding on to hope
48:12not just that they're holding on they're sharing their stories of course there's on the one hand
48:16material success but on the other hand they're sharing their stories and that material success
48:21also comes with education so education all these things in the role that they play in mental health
48:25but the fact that we have people like Ibu and look at how brave he is to even write that story
48:31I was reading it and I was like oh my god will I ever be this brave to uh talk about it and it was
48:38amazing isn't it very so this issue is for the Ibus for the Amlis for the Jacquelines and for all of us to
48:45just make the world a safer kind of place yeah and also I think for journalists I think it was an exercise in
48:51empathy that's what we are losing every day and I think working with you guys uh I think maybe maybe
48:5710 percent also if we gain in empathy uh that's a lot because it takes a lot to not judge a person
49:03and go to these spaces and I think all our reporters have benefited and I think for us it was not even
49:08about like anything else it was also to just learn how to live in this world and not alienate people
49:14but thank you so much Vandana ji and that and please read the issue and yeah Vandana is our friend so
49:22yeah that's it I mean we won't uh make two bones about it
49:26you
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