Ignorance is bliss?

The best part of living in a metro like Delhi is that you are always on your toes, either for work—professional or personal, or for fun. Whatever that may be, the point is we virtually spend more time on road, amidst the traffic, rather than with our loved ones. No pun intended. And all thanks to the traffic jams and the mess on the Delhi roads; all thanks to the revamping of the city and the constructions that is going on to prepare it for the upcoming Commonwealth games, roads have almost become second home for most of us—people who daily commute from one end of the city to the another for work, studies. Depending on traffic, I spend around 4-5 hours, and the good thing about it is that more time I spend on road, the more chance I get to observe things which I often miss out on. Innocence of kids, laughter of the elderly couples on the street, beauty of nature… Sometimes it is the brutality of nature or cruelty of human that grabs attention.

Today I wanna talk about the later.

I have had a really close encounter with a person, and ever since then all I have been thinking is why people like him are not being taken care of.
I met this man, approaching his sixties in bus. He looked ordinary; just what most of the dads look like. But it was his calm and composed demeanor and that broad innocent smile on his face that grabbed my attention. He greeted me with his innocent-looking smile and so did I to reciprocate. (Now, the thing with me is whenever I have an eye contact with any person, known or a complete stranger*, I always greet them with a smile on my face. Just a gesture to tell them it feels good to see them around. And also because I believe is that our smile can lighten up someone’s mood without saying a word. Atleast it works for me, so… )

And after that we ended up striking a conversation. He started it and in another few minutes I realized that the man I am talking to was not fit. He appeared to be physically fit but mentally he wasn’t. He was depressed, perhaps a loner—this is what all his words, his gestures suggested. I knew I couldn’t entertain him much with my talks, so I opted out of the conversation. But somewhere in my heart the guilt of not showing that man respect remained. We don’t turn our backs when we are talking to our parents or elders at home, damn it. Do we? But I did. What added more to the pain was the way other people treated him. They laughed off at him, ridiculed him, some even shouted at him and that person, he kept smiling oblivious to the disrespect that people around were showing towards him. He just kept looking for someone he could just talk to. He was trying really hard to grab attention and be accepted by people around and for that he simply ignored the rejection he saw on people’s face.

Now, I am not the kind of a person who cries on seeing others plight. Whenever I get moved by certain things/people, I tell my heart there is no point thinking and feeling bad when I can't do anything to really help. And after few seconds I forget everything, or make my heart forget everything and move on. But I just couldn't do the same with this man. I kept thinking about him for several days, his smiling face remained intact in my eyes, and I kept asking myself, "Is it really that difficult for us to accept a depressed person? Can I do something to really help him?"

No, he wasn’t mad. And I can say this because he wasn’t talking nonsense. Agreed, he was talking non stop but all his talks were focused on engaging the person in a conversation. I could see he was a loner but people just wrote him off as a mad person who they thought is best suited for a mental asylum not in the world of ours, so-called-sane people.

And no, I am not trying to say that people were completely at fault, they did all this because of the lack of awareness. How many people in India know what depression is? How many of us think that it is okay for a depressed person to go to the psychiatrist? For most of the people believe in India depressed person is equivalent to mad. People don’t take such people to psychiatrist; rather they take them to the Babas who they believe will take out the evil spirit from the body of their loved ones.

We just don’t give what depressed people actually crave for—love, affection and care. We don’t realize just by lending them our shoulder to cry or giving them a patient hearing, we can help them recover. What we do is shoe them away from lives, if possible, or simply ignore there plight.

I sincerely feel that such people must be taken care of, and for this we need to educate people about the existence of diseases like depression that still remain in oblivion. Most importantly the rural population, how many people in villages must have heard about a psychiatrist? I recalled the case of a depressed lady who was chained and loc ked in a cubicle, by her family members for several years. She remained there in unhygienic conditions, starving, without care and affection of his family until someone from the media found her.

I believe there are many people like the man I met in the bus who are waiting to be treated with love and respect. An action plan on this front is long due. After all, ignorance is not always a bliss.


*Only those strangers who have that positive aura around them.