For centuries, the notion of mental health (read: poor mental health) has been associated with creatives. Writers make a major chunk of this populace. From the amount of academic and pop-culture information there exists about writers and their writerly (mostly unhealthy) eccentricities, it is surprising that we don’t have a proportional amount of literature tackling the issue that plagues their very makers.
India’s known to be one of the most depressed countries of the world. And the stigma that surrounds mental health and issues of depression and others, contributes to this worsening statistic. It is only this past decade that we’ve seen a shift in the conversation around mental health in India. With more celebrities speaking up about their experiences, films and books tackling its issues in a directed instead of a fleeting, caricaturized manner, the taboos are breaking down, even though at sloth speed, one brick at a time.
I’ve always believed that the arts are more than just about entertainment. They’re tools for change. Change in thought, culture and society. What we consume in media about the world is what ultimately starts shaping our view of the world.
Books such as Shaheen Bhatt’s ‘I’ve Never Been (Un)happier’, Jerry Pinto’s ‘Em and the big Hoom’, Amandeep Sandhu’s ‘Sepia Leaves’ are some in the small category of Mental Health that explore the subject in a nuanced, sensitive manner.
Why is it that we read (and write) more literature about mental health? Why do we need more stories about the capacities and incapacities of our whimsical mind?
I think the answer lies somewhere in why we read literature at all.
One of the reasons we love literature and the stories it exposes us to, is because it lets us be seen in the closed comforts of our anonymity. It vocalizes our fears and anxieties, normalizes our confusions and trepidations, and makes us feel understood. When viewed from a lens of mental health, this is imperative for those suffering from or caring for someone with mental illnesses as much as it is for those who are not.
Representation in art allows people not to feel alone. It gives them a reason to see bits of themselves in another, piece together their own narratives with the aid of the story. The greatest writers change lives not because they cook up stories no one else can. They change lives because they give words to feelings we neglect and are too afraid to face. They open us up, take the confused mess of our lives, and present that in an orderly fashion, capable of love and more.
And for those who don’t suffer from mental illness, literature allows them to understand the other, see their struggle. From understanding comes compassion, and from there, another breaking of a brick.
But even outside of mental illnesses, the mind is an interesting entity. As interesting as it is unreliable, whimsical, a doer of its own thing. Either it wants too much or gets upset at wanting too little. Either it has too much time or cribs about not having enough. Thwarted desires, unfulfillment, a few fleeting moments of glee, all of which might not be mental health illnesses, but affect our daily mental health.
Literature and art, at the end of the day, are expressions of this paradoxical mind. In my own writing, it is these confusions and perplexities of the human condition that I explore. Whether it was Mrinalini’s inhibitions and her reluctance at being a mother, or Ayaan’s loss in confidence after losing out on sport, the one thing that gave him the identity that he had, it is the grappling with the routine and sometimes not-so-routine, the undiagnosable that make characters come alive as people.
The arts and culture have an interdependent relationship. A chicken and an egg story of sorts. Art can bring about radical changes in culture and thought, and culture in society can serve to perpetuate a style of art. As much as the arts is an industry of expression, it is also an industry of commerce. As consumers, we have the power to set into production that what we wish to see produced. With greater, more free-flowing dialogue around mental health, consuming related literature, we individually can bring about a change in the stigma and spur a higher engagement in and creation of mental health related art.
Simar Malhotra is the author of the best selling novels 'There is a Tide' and 'The Tides Don't Cross'.
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