HEALING SOCIETY THROUGH MENTAL WELLBEING

Society imposes strange, unreasonable paradigms on us. Men must never cry. Women must always sacrifice. The patriarchal edifice upon which our hypocritically gilded ‘mansion of pride’ is modelled, leads to trauma, suffering, pressures, unrealistic expectations, and in some extreme cases, solicits the worst fate – of life itself !

My wife Anuja Mishra's parents were both Delhi University Professors. Her late mother Professor Sadhana Mishra was a Literature Professor; alongside which she was an extremely socially-conscious & active citizen of Delhi, regularly galvanising support, and resources and leading protest marches against multiple societal atrocities.

Tragically, we lost this incredibly brave individual when she succumbed to her chronic clinical depression and took her own life, in 1996! At the time, my wife was a 15-year young teenager, and her younger brother Uday was merely 4 years old! Leaving a shocked and grieving family of a father & three children, Sadhana might have put an end to her suffering but inadvertently pressed the ‘play’ button on the family’s anguish! Suffice it to say that the trauma Anuja endured for decades had built to breaking point.

It was only recently that she sought professional therapy and quickly realized the transformative benefits of expert mental help. She was finally able to come to terms with the horrific demise of her mother.

In parallel, I too have endured a more-than-manageable share of mental trauma. Sparing the gory details; all manner of Abuse on my mother and me at the hands of my father since I was a little boy of 6 (before being sent to Doon). A complicated relationship with my father until 5 years ago, when my mother (after 40 years of an agonizing marriage), my wife, our just-born daughter (at that time) and I decided to separate from my father. The day after we left him, he filed countless false lawsuits against us for Theft & Dissertation that we continue to be embroiled in, through a multi-city, protracted legal battle! The Thyroid Cancer that I was diagnosed with in 2019, I believe truly, to be a manifestation of Mental Trauma (rather than anything clinical). I too continue to be in Mental Therapy and both Anuja & I are vocal proponents of it; despite potential losses in terms of work we may get as educators & Writers, respectively! In November 2022, Anuja decided, despite our modest means, to do an event in remembrance of Anuja's mother. We called it Driveway Devi, a 1 day Art Show, literally in the driveway of our home in Jaipur. When we began prepping and spreading the word in the lead-up to this small little endeavour, we were inundated with support. Artists from all over the country sent in artwork. People, especially women from all ages, stages, and strata shared stories of Mental Health & Struggles. Sunday 18th December 2022 was the Art Show. Rukshmani Kumari, Sadhana Garg & Shamini Shankar inaugurated the show, and in 5 hours, we had raised a rather unanticipated, nearly 5 lacs! We received immense support from all quarters – bipartisan political patronage with an endorsement letter from Vasundhara Raje, an interview with Congress Spokesperson Aiyshwarya Mahadev, unprecedented support from Shraddha Murdia through her Kashti Foundation, Rajeev Singh through his Town Coffee, and many other generous individual donors.

We were extremely conscious of associating with an organization that was legitimate and doing actual, real, on-ground work (as most NGOs tend to be fraudulent fronts for their promoters to fill their coffers). We tied up with the Indian Women Impact which has been doing groundbreaking work with rural communities here in Jaipur. In conjunction with them, we have already started employing the funds from the Art Show to organize Mental Wellbeing Programs for the most marginalized women & girls.

After the show, Anuja & I realized that we cannot possibly stop! We felt compelled to carry on. And hence, Driveway Devi went from being a stand-alone Art Show to raising Funds & Awareness for Mental Health - to Driveway Devi, Mental Wellness Initiative. Under this, we plan to do 2 things. One, each quarter, organise an event with a different Sector for Mental Well-being - A Mental Health Festival at a School, and in a subsequent calendar quarter, A Therapeutic Writing Retreat squarely for Men, and so on. Second, we want to keep the Conversation around Mental Health going on permanently, and to have the widest crosssection of individuals, including but not limited to Mental Health Practitioners. We already have a rich repository of interviews/interactions with a diverse set of people, including Students, Actors, Politicians, Civil Servants, Home-Makers, and Artists; all these people speak at length about observed and/or personal mental health battles. This conversation has a PROFOUND impact on Normalizing Therapy, a desperate need of the hour, given the life and times we are in - Globally, Politically and otherwise. All our work can be easily accessed through Instagram @drivewaydevi and/or through our website kartikbajoria.com

We anticipate that from 2023 onwards, Driveway Devi will be a ‘facilitator’ for all things Mental Well-being related. Events, drives, raising funds, awareness, advocacy, getting individuals and/or organisations in touch with the right resources; all this and more is planned. Most of all, together, we hope to reduce, if not annihilate, the stigma attached to mental health and help collapse all the barriers to getting mental help.

It is time. Time to remodel the ‘mansion of pride’ I referred to at the outset of this article. To demolish, conceive afresh, and construct a society free of bias and patriarchy, judgment and labels, prejudices and persecution. Let us all come together and be Mentally Wealthy!

KARTIK BAJORIA (Author is a Jaipur-based Communication Skills Educator & Writer)