Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
India Booked | The Shocking Lives of India’s Teenagers
120 Plays4 years ago
Stoned, Shamed, Depressed’ is an alarming reality check of the struggles faced by the teens of India, dealing with the evident but deliberately denied issues of substance abuse, social media and gaming, bullying, body shaming and the frailty of mental health. Renowned journalist and author Jyotsna Mohan Bhargava traces the difficult journey from teenage to adulthood, where children easily give into temptations without realizing the repercussions and dangers of the virtual world and bad habits.
In this episode of India Booked, Jyotsna talks to host Ayushi Mona about the eye opening accounts that materialized the book and the incidents that confirm the ignorance and denial of parents on the mental health issues and habits of their children.
The conversation addresses the concerns of drugs, consent and self-harm, of how children get caught up in the web of conforming to the expectations of their family against the pressure from their peers and much more.
Tune in now to hear Jyotsna Mohan Bhargava dig beneath the charades of everyday lives of the Indian teenager in both cyberspace and the modern-day school life in urban India.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to 'India Booked' Podcast
00:00:11
Speaker
I'm your host Ayushi Mona and you're listening to India Booked, a podcast where we lean into the idea of India through its literature and we speak to authors who bring this to life. Parents often think that they are on top of things when it comes to their children.
Exploring Urban Indian Teens' Lives
00:00:35
Speaker
In stone-shamed, depressed journalist Jyotsna Mohan Bhargava investigates the secret lives of India's urban teens and comes up with an eye-opening account of struggles with addiction to substances, social media, gaming, dealing with intense peer pressure, bullying, body shaming and the result in physical and mental health issues.
00:01:02
Speaker
Her book chronicles the confused journey of Indian teens to adulthood, a longer road that's full of temptation, where boundaries are easily blurred and where the lure of easy adventure, often in the virtual world, can unleash events that have repercussions for years to come.
00:01:25
Speaker
The narrative interweaves accounts of teens, parents, teachers and child psychologists to reveal a deeply disturbing picture of modern day school life in urban India. On this episode of India Booked, join us as we talk about this often not discussed issue, the Unravelling Mental Health of India's Teens.
00:01:49
Speaker
Hello everyone, I am Ayushi Mona, your host on India Booked.
Introducing Jyotsna and Her Book
00:01:54
Speaker
Today I am super pumped to have with me Jyotsna Mohan Bhargava. She has worked with NDTV for 15 years as an Indian news anchor and an Indian news editor. She is a columnist for multiple newspapers and magazines in India and abroad. She has also written Stone Shame Depressed, which is
00:02:14
Speaker
an extremely explosive account that you know really chronicles the journey that adolescents today take on their path to adulthood. You can learn about the book on YouTube on NDTV's channel as well where Josna inaugurated the book. And we are going to dive into some of these specifics today on what Josna's captured.
00:02:40
Speaker
Jose, welcome to the show. Super happy and excited to have you here. Thank you so much, Aayushi. Really looking forward to this session. Hope it's going to be enjoyable for those listening in as well later. I almost think it's kind of ironical to use the word happiness and enjoyable because of course that's the sentiment we have towards each other during the session. But this book really shook me.
00:03:09
Speaker
I finished reading it, you know, late Friday night after we'd spoken during this week. And I think parts of me, and that could also be because I'm not a parent, I'm say like in my mid 20s. For me, this book really resonated with what I had seen in school, because I was part of, you know,
00:03:35
Speaker
the kind of audience that you speak about in your book, which is urban Indian teenagers in prominent schools.
Motivations Behind Writing 'Stone Shame Depressed'
00:03:45
Speaker
Of course, these things were slightly different, maybe 10-12 years back. But all of these realities were taking shape and emerging back then as well. So a lot of the book is something that I could understand and relate to. But I want to ask you what was really your motivation behind putting this together?
00:04:09
Speaker
Firstly, Ayushi, I want to go back to how you said about the word enjoyable when it comes to this book. I've really struggled with that myself. Every time somebody sent me a photo of the book or tweeted the book, the instinctive reaction is enjoy the book. And then I'm like, it's such a tough, it's such a hard knock out there in that book. I mean, I don't know what to say to people. Then I just say, give me your feedback and I carry on.
00:04:37
Speaker
It's so tricky. But having said that, my motivation has been twofold in a sense that, you know, I say that often, I think I've been fascinated for the last few years with, you know, seeing children at the ages of five, six, seven, all, you know, being gifted a smartphone or an iPad. And I've really questioned, I've really wanted to go into where is it that these children are going with these gadgets in their hands so early, you know, when
00:05:06
Speaker
When they don't know any safety measures, nothing. They think it's a toy, but where are the parents actually taking these children as well? And I think, on the other hand, I kind of realized that there are a lot of headlines now in the recent years or so.
Ignoring Alarming Headlines: A Societal Issue
00:05:22
Speaker
around children like the Snapchat bullying case or you know whether it's been the Mumbai WhatsApp case, the boys locker room case and you know all these cases they're making the headlines and then after two days three days we're not talking about them anymore
00:05:38
Speaker
And I really wanted to question as to why is it that we're not digging deeper into the lives of children when so much is going on with them? Why are we not taking it seriously? And I think, you know, it was a combination of both these things. And I kind of wondered in my mind whether all these children that I'm seeing at the age of five and six,
00:05:59
Speaker
who are sitting with a gadget, are these the ones then becoming the headlines that we see two years later? So I think my attempt has been to bring out to a society that doesn't look very openly and happily to things that are uncomfortable, things that are not traditional. And talk about the fact that things happen to our children. And just because they are younger,
00:06:26
Speaker
does not mean that the issues around them are not big.
00:06:44
Speaker
we were younger, was that, OK, be careful when you go out playing, stay away from the road, and don't talk to strangers. But now, the kids are not all right, because the danger is pretty much within home. It's on these gadgets and devices that parents sort of leave the children on, because parents also have to switch off, or they think that they have to keep up with the times.
00:07:11
Speaker
And a lot of times, this danger is on your phone, on your parents' phone, and in your classroom and your rooms.
00:07:21
Speaker
The danger is not so much outside anymore as it is within and on these devices.
Perceptions of Teen Issues Across Ages
00:07:27
Speaker
And you've done such a, you know, I must say rigorous job really, because Josna, you've reached out to students and psychologists and teachers. What do you think between the different sets of audiences that you spoke to? How do you think the perception of the gravity of this issue varies?
00:07:50
Speaker
Oh, it does. Firstly, talking about that danger that is there now, I feel that danger is here 24-7. Earlier, we would talk about, okay, you get bullied in school, you take the school bus, you come home, it's done for the day. But now, as soon as you come home, so many children get going on their smartphone, get going on their iPads.
00:08:11
Speaker
And that cycle just continues and continues. So these children and, you know, I feel like, you know, even the kind of reaction that I've got from people who are in their 20s has been enormous, Ayushi, you know, it's the book is actually targeting a demographic from the age of 15 to about 45, 50. So it's not just because I've said it right at the beginning, this is really not a parenting book. And so a lot of people even in that identified with stuff that they've gone through recently and
00:08:41
Speaker
And I think there's just so much. I think it's been a partake for a lot of them. For teenagers, for children, for people in their 20s, they're like at least somebody has finally spoken about the issues that we're going through. That it's not just a smooth ride and the mental health issues. But a lot of them have actually looked at me and said, we're so impressed that you got out gaming into
Denial Among Educated Parents
00:09:05
Speaker
the book. Because gaming is just not understood in the country.
00:09:09
Speaker
On the other hand, you know, when I speak to the adults, I think I'd say that there's a tiny fraction that is really involved with what's going on, that understands, you know, understands the dangers of the cyber world, that understands what it is like to be let loose on social media. And even these parents, I found them to be struggling.
00:09:30
Speaker
There's just so many challenges coming from all directions. So imagine now the parents that I spoke to here are still living in denial. We still say that these things don't happen. I mean, they're like, if I spoke to somebody I know and I mentioned to her,
00:09:46
Speaker
And I said, I believe that the school in which your children study, there was a case where a boy and a girl were asked to leave after they were found to be getting intimate. And her instinctive reaction was that it's really controversial. Let's not talk about it.
00:10:02
Speaker
And that's where I'm coming from. That's the reason I wrote this book. I think the time to it's time to get over this denial. It's time to accept that uncomfortable things happen in our society as well. It's time to go beyond the fact that this is just a Western culture. No. In fact, you know, one of the you know, the one of the first reactions that I got on Twitter was from this gentleman who wrote to me saying that, you know, this book is a quote, Western bullshit, unquote.
00:10:31
Speaker
And I replied back saying, you know, this is precisely the reason that I've written this book. It's precisely the people like you that I have written this book because, you know, we cannot sit in denial anymore. Any child who has a smartphone in their hands, whether even in, you know, semi-urban India is now that Western child that you're talking about, that you're looking down about, you know, that you think is not happening.
00:10:54
Speaker
and it's all the same here now we're watching the same shows we're streaming everything at the same time so i'm just you know it's very hard getting to parents and i know a lot of them are going to look down their nose about you know down at this book and say it's a meota but it's all happening and unless we sit down and we accept the reality of what is going on with our children i'm afraid you know we're in danger of losing this generation
00:11:20
Speaker
I absolutely agree with you, right? Because ultimately, if I am on Snapchat or Instagram, I have access to the same account features that everyone else does. And it doesn't matter if the other teenager is in New York City and I am in New Delhi or in Indore or Bhopal or anywhere else. So ultimately, because the internet is like a flat level playing field for everyone, everyone has access to the same things.
00:11:50
Speaker
and access hence to the same problems and same aspirations. And of course, a lot of these things could also be due to the fact that there is obviously a technological gap or an understanding gap. I mean, say, parents don't even understand substance abuse or I think a parent might not know what vaping is.
00:12:15
Speaker
But his or her child is quite ahead of the curve. They know all of that. They know how to, you know, hack someone's account, for instance. Now, that's not a reality for the parent, but it's a reality for the
Privilege and Mental Health in Teens
00:12:30
Speaker
child. And the child is hence caught up in that web of whether it's being technologically more aware, but really not being emotionally equipped to deal with all of these things.
00:12:46
Speaker
I just wonder, Joseph, because you've written about a spectrum of things from the gaming piece, which is something which is completely new age, to something as obvious as, say, suicides for high performers. How did you go in on and decide that, okay, this is what you want to zero in on and speak about?
00:13:10
Speaker
because there's so many issues that really plague teenagers today. And of course, you know the risk of people being disbelieving or people saying, oh, this is just too urban or too tier one city types. It doesn't really reflect real India, but ultimately there are thousands and lakhs of children in these top schools as well, right? And they are part of the country as much as somebody with not as much privilege.
00:13:38
Speaker
So why is it that there are certain issues that get glamorized in a particular way or not? I think the mental health of say a 13 year old who has certain privilege is as weighty as the mental health of maybe a child who may not have that much privilege because ultimately even the other child
00:14:03
Speaker
will in the future someday have access to say internet or to being bullied or to being aspirational and then maybe taking up to these things you know without proper guidance and support.
00:14:18
Speaker
Absolutely, you know, it's as if, you know, somebody did write to me saying that, you know, this doesn't then apply to two or two cities. But you're absolutely wrong. Because some of the two cities are catching up when it comes to smartphone usage, when it comes to children. And I think smartphone is at the crux of, you know, everything that goes around. I mean, it's something where, you know, you're sitting on Instagram, Snapchat, you're even gaming, you don't even need a console anymore, right?
00:14:43
Speaker
So I think that I don't think like you said, you know, that if this is we can differentiate, I think the issues are the same. I mean, any child who can be sitting in Ljubljana can have a mental health issue and any child sitting in Mumbai can have, you know, anxiety bands. It's all the same. It's the culture that we're living in. It's the hurried environment of cyberspace. Every child has access now. You know, it's all about the access. It's about the exposure that they get.
00:15:09
Speaker
It's nothing like what we had. And if you're streaming the same shows as somebody in Europe or the US is doing, you're streaming them all simultaneously. Your exposure then is exactly the same as it is anywhere else in the world. So to say that we're still not exposed to that is absolutely not correct. And I think it was really hard for me to figure out what to focus on. But fortunately, the last couple of years before I started writing this book, Ayushi, I had
00:15:39
Speaker
I started picking up these issues one by one and started writing opinion pieces on it and different publications so you know stuff like bullying I'd already written about body shaming
00:15:50
Speaker
I had written about the normalization of the word rape across school corridors I had written about. So I think taking from there, I just, you know, delved a little bit deeper, like you spoke about, you know, things that you come across, it's just about I think, you know, as journalists, we keep asking questions. So if somebody would talk to me and mention something, I found a little or I would keep asking questions, which is why my big focus on vaping, as you also mentioned.
00:16:14
Speaker
Waping to just give you an example about weeping and how this whole wall of denial still remains an educated, upper-class society. A school teacher in one of the biggest schools in the country, in fact, she's a school principal. When I was sitting and interviewing her, and we were talking about weeping, and she was telling me about how so many children are weeping, not just in senior school, but even in middle school.
00:16:42
Speaker
She actually turned around and she pointed to a cupboard in her room and in school. And she said, you see that cupboard? It is full. It is filled with confiscated e-cigarettes. And she said, and parents, I call them and they look at me like, you know, our kids don't do it. Our kids don't do it.
00:16:58
Speaker
And I've seen that. I went on a session just shortly before the book was to be launched. And one of the girls who was in it is class 12 students. So I thought that, well, there are going to be a lot of parents on this. Let me get a girl. They're going to understand how things are happening when a student, who's possibly the age of their children, speaks rather than me. So when I asked that girl about weeping, she was so honest and open.
00:17:25
Speaker
And she spoke about how weeping is so rampant in school and two corridors. And Aayushi,
Critical Discussions on Consent and Safety
00:17:30
Speaker
my whole session, my whole chat was suddenly filled with parents saying, oh, we had no idea. We had no idea. We had no idea. And I'm thinking to myself, you know, I might get the younger, but I have an idea. How do you not have an idea?
00:17:42
Speaker
And I can tell you, it's not about not having an idea. It's about the fact that you don't want to accept that this happens. Like, I spoke with somebody in a school where I know it happens. It's very rampant. And I asked her, I said, your son is now in class 11 or 12. Does he know about raping? And I think the reaction was no, no. He doesn't even know about it. I said, you know, ask him. No, I don't need to. I know he doesn't know.
00:18:02
Speaker
And I'm sorry to say, I completely do not agree. I'm sure that boy knows if he's not weeping, at least he's aware of what weeping is. So this is what we are up against and I think that, you know,
00:18:13
Speaker
This book, I hope that parents can at least look at the issues that I've tried to bring about. Some are very, very critical in this environment. Things like consent, things like teaching our children how to say no. I mean, look at the culture outside. Look at what is going on when it comes to women and children and the crimes against them. I think these are critical conversations that we need to have in our homes, and we need to have them now. I'm so glad that you've actually written a book like this. And again,
00:18:43
Speaker
perhaps being slightly closer to age in terms of somebody who passed out of school or just got out of the education system than most parents listening to the show. I have to tell every parent out there that while your child may not be involved,
00:19:02
Speaker
your child cannot escape the realities of sort of being pressured or bullied or being made aware of the environment right so even if and your book for instance and because you bought up consent right your book has such um relevant and and heartbreaking instances of right of children say sending nudes to each other or or you know using social media and and uh no and not using consent or or
00:19:31
Speaker
just using their bodies as bait without really even being aware of the kind of repercussions. There is a portion in the book where a girl say a girl who's not even a ninth standard has a purchase lingerie to post up a picture on Instagram right as a thirst trap. Now while your child may not be indulging in these right and while you could say limit the interaction that your child has to these things
00:19:56
Speaker
there is no way that your child is not aware that a classmate is doing something like this right or a friend is doing something like this and even being in the know affects your mental health and affects the stance that you choose to take so if you choose to distance yourself
00:20:12
Speaker
from substance abuse or bullying or all of these performative aspects of the kind of peer pressure that children today deal with, there's a certain cost to mental health that comes from being isolated from a friend group as well, right? So even if your child is a good child, even if your child is a child who comes and tells you everything and you have a great bond with them,
00:20:36
Speaker
your child will still carry the burdens of knowing and hence it's imperative that these discussions are in public and you know and they don't really happen in the case of most parents just believing or my child is studying and getting great marks and is you know
00:20:59
Speaker
going to clear competitive exam so all is well and I think that's also important aspect that parents don't realize that
00:21:07
Speaker
that you can't really escape from these realities just because you choose to ignore them or so far you've not been affected by them because ultimately it's an ecosystem
Teens' Struggles with Peer Pressure
00:21:18
Speaker
thing, right? I mean, the boys in the locker room conversation case, the minor girls that they were talking about, I'm sure the parents of those girls had thought that everything is fine with their girls, but the girls are.
00:21:32
Speaker
being bullied in this ecosystem. So you can be perpetrated against even if you're not a perpetrator and hence these conversations have become super important.
00:21:42
Speaker
You know, I just have like one request for the parents and I think, you know, read this book with an open mind because, you know, I mean, go beyond or look at the issue, look at the fact that we're talking about drugs or look at the fact that, you know, we're talking about sex in schools and go beyond it and read between the lines and read at the poignancy I'm trying to take out of, you know,
00:22:04
Speaker
of a bunch of children who really are looking for an uncle. Why should a child tell me that I have drugs, but anybody who has a void in them, they feel the need for these experience enhances. If we didn't have this void inside us, why would we resort to these things? I think that's what we need to see.
00:22:27
Speaker
why have we made them so isolated right? I mean it's it's really hard. Pure pressure is so tough on this generation. The fear of being ostracized is enormous. I think no child wants to snitch on their friends and I think they're not for the simple reason again that there's just so much pressure to not not do wrong and I think that's where they're choosing. So if they're not
00:22:50
Speaker
speaking and having conversations at home. They have two choices, whether they go with what traditionally a family expects of them or whether they go and stay with the children and not get ostracized in school. And I think a lot of them are choosing to go with what the children are doing in school.
00:23:06
Speaker
And they feel like we'll handle what goes on at home. In any case, it's not like we're having any conversation. So we'll deal with it when it comes to it. Maybe our parents will never even know about it. And I think it's really sad to leave these children to their own devices right now. We really have to up our game because so much that
00:23:24
Speaker
This at such an impressionable age. I mean, the biggest, biggest learning for me in this Aayushi was the fact that, you know, I thought I was going to write about children who are 17, 18, 19, maybe 20, 21, 22. Where I ended up, the IP Center was 10, 11, 12, 13.
00:23:40
Speaker
Look at that page gap. Every month matters in cyberspace. Now, 10-year-olds, 11-year-olds have this unrestrained freedom to do what they want with nobody looking, with nobody telling them, with nobody explaining any cyber safety laws to them. I mean, they're getting attacked from all sides. It's very, very hard.
00:24:00
Speaker
It didn't happen in our times, perhaps it did. I mean, you can't say that drugs didn't happen in our time, you know, or issues didn't come up in our times and people didn't have mental health issues. It's just gotten exaggerated in this whole cyber world, in this whole social media world. And I think to save our children, we need to understand what is going on with them first. Absolutely.
00:24:24
Speaker
this whole thing right that the tweens are the new teens is so important because a lot of times parents might judge the epicenter or the time to talk about these issues as the time that they themselves went through this right so if say for instance
00:24:43
Speaker
They dealt with puberty at 13 or 14. They think that's the right time to talk to their kid. But in today's time, the board really has sales. So you maybe should be talking to your kid when they're eight or nine years old. And in fact, there's this one section in your book where you talk about a boy who's in class five and
Developing Support Systems for Teens
00:25:04
Speaker
keeps missing school because of his gaming addiction. And then, of course, I mean, while all of this is really heartbreaking to read, I think perhaps the good thing and what I think is really important and something that I take away from this book is that there are a lot of child psychologists or medical personnel, right? So it's not that our ecosystem for support doesn't exist in our urban cities.
00:25:32
Speaker
It's growing, it's nascent, but it's growing. In fact, there is, for instance, you've mentioned something called the SHUT Clinic, which is the country's first digital detox clinic. SHUT stands for Service for Healthy Use of Technology, for those of you who are listening in, it's based in Bangalore. And it's a great thing that these psychologists, counsellors, and other mental health professionals are there to really guide children through, because a lot of times,
00:26:02
Speaker
younger children will simply block out parents, right? So I think that for me has been an important takeaway that at least now there is this ecosystem where a child can be comfortable or speak in addition to, you know, whatever they're dealing with, right, apart from, say, a school or the parent themselves. Right. But I think, you know, we really as schools especially have to really up the game when it comes to
00:26:29
Speaker
you know, counseling when it comes to sex education, when it comes to mental health counseling, I mean, so many children now, Aayushi, so many children, they all spoke about how that, you know, they're still not getting the kind of education that they need to get. And, you know, sexual sex education is still very, it's at a token state still. And a lot of children still spoke about the fact that, you know, they need counselors that they don't really know where to go half the time. And I think
00:26:55
Speaker
What are the support system has increased to have the cases right it's in that balance everything is back to square one and i think really schools need to also change that game i feel that a lot depends on schools now they can't just stick to the teaching of old you know where a child just comes in and you know you do the textbook learning and you do learning by road and you let them go.
00:27:17
Speaker
I think schools now need to embrace a whole different level of teaching, a very holistic level of teaching where they need to go beyond just what's going on in the textbooks and see what's going on with the children and understand where the children are coming from. I think schools have a very important role to play going forward.
Rethinking Education's Role
00:27:37
Speaker
I agree with you.
00:27:40
Speaker
And here again, right, this is where one of those issues of, you know, those typical India versus Bharat issues that we always talk about, right, when it comes to children's issue crops up, is that a lot of times we negate certain kinds of education, right, which is more practical, due to the whole nature of our economy being more competitive or parent just in general thinking, right, that the purpose of education is to land you employment.
00:28:09
Speaker
more than prepare you for life. I say that. I say that, you know, it's time that we really focus on life lessons for now, you know. I mean, just yesterday, a mother was messaging me, a friend, you know, her son is in class seven. And, you know, she was telling me this online study with the terms so crazy. And I understand I see it with my own daughter, you know.
00:28:31
Speaker
having studies from seven thirty to three o'clock you know with barely two minute breaks in the middle and then they get homework you know so this is online you're sitting with a gadget
00:28:42
Speaker
We're just not thinking what we're doing to our children. Why is it so important that we cannot back off? We just don't back off from the conventional. And it bothers me. It really bothers me. And I'm seeing more and more of that happening during COVID. I mean, when COVID happened, all of us went, oh, gosh, what are we going to do? How are we going to exercise? How are we going to keep fit? So we went and bit. We went and cleaned. But one person said, what is happening to that child?
00:29:09
Speaker
You know, we thought, okay, now our children are doing online studies. They're happy with the gadgets. No, they're not. Six months later, they're miserable. But we're not talking. We're just not talking.
00:29:19
Speaker
And it's really sad. It bothers me that we're not asking these children how they're struggling with their online classes. They are struggling. And to top it all, schools giving them homework after like a long, long day. I don't understand why. I don't understand what it will take for us to back off from our traditional thinking and, you know, look at a child first versus what is expected. It's very hard. True.
00:29:49
Speaker
You know, of course, I think this is one of those conversations that we can keep doing right because and I have to say this before I ask you the next question or something. If I were your child, I would be super proud of my mother for having actually attempted and managed to write a book, right, which
00:30:11
Speaker
which actually speaks to what is happening right as opposed to just a perception of what parents think is happening and the kind of effort you've put in and the kind of I think objectivity also I'm sure I think as a mother it's not really easy to be doing this kind of research and not panicking and getting worried yourself
00:30:34
Speaker
but just the kind of objectivity that you bought in right by not making this a parenting manual right because you could make this a parenting manual of saying that hey you know this is hash or cocaine and this is how children send news on snapchat or this is what PUBG could be doing to your kid right and you could invoke fear and panic and all of that but I think
00:30:57
Speaker
Kudos to you for actually making this so objective as opposed to prescriptive or telling parents what needs to be done.
00:31:05
Speaker
I think everybody's just figuring out in today's day and age. Yeah, I mean, that was really, that was actually a very tricky part, I wish you two, you know, not given my two bits here and there. But I also know that nobody really wants two bits on parenting. Parenting is very personal. And I feel like, you know, we don't really want advisors as a society, we don't seek advice and to, you know, give you an example of something really different. And I remember the last
00:31:30
Speaker
winter when it was you know the pollution time pollution was at an all-time high in Delhi and you know I just come back from school after having picked up my kids because you know the levels were so high I went and got them home and while I was driving back you know somebody I know was walking you know she was jogging
00:31:47
Speaker
uh in the colony and very intelligent very very intelligent you know uh person who's worked abroad and everything and i said why are you doing this look at the levels you're 700 and she's like it's okay you know we have to we have to all die we may as well die fit and after that i said you know i am not telling anybody what to do nobody wants to listen everybody's going to do what they want to do so what all i can do is to bring out
00:32:13
Speaker
a picture, bring out a mirror for you. How you take it forward is really up to you. But I hope that going forward, you can make a little bit of informed choices. I hope you can do some justice to your children going forward because, you know, they're different, but doesn't make them wrong. They're not always right. So it's a very tricky balance, but they're not completely wrong. As you know, I mean, a lot of children, they speak to me about why do we need to have drugs and why, you know, you understand that, you know, why are we in so much pain? And I
00:32:41
Speaker
across the board, Aayushi. I have asked children one question, same question to every child I met. I said, why is there so much ants in here? Why are you so emotionally fragile? And why are you so sensitive? And they said that we are this way. We don't want to be what you all were. We're not willing to conform to a society that keeps going back to traditions. We are different.
00:33:06
Speaker
But nobody's willing to accept that. And I think that's at the core of their struggle. And I think that is where we need to evaluate things for ourselves and for our children, because, you know, we also normalize the things, right? I mean, things are happening, things, drugs are not just happening in the homeless. So, you know, alcohol is not just happening once homeless with children.
00:33:25
Speaker
Their compulsions are so different from the compulsions of the entitled, rich, privileged, well-to-do, or even second tier of urban cities, right? I mean, they've got things. They've got things in a factor that
Addressing Casual Attitudes Towards Self-harm
00:33:38
Speaker
go to good schools. They've got good education. And yet, why is it that they have nothing to show for it? Why are they struggling? Why is it that what they have is not enough? I think we need to re-evaluate a lot of things going forward.
00:33:51
Speaker
You know, why is it that they need to resort to drugs, or why is it that they're resorting to self-harm, which is again very big, right? I mean, I was stunned at the level of casualness when it comes to self-harm. I mean, so many children, so many of them are usually talking openly about
00:34:10
Speaker
hitting the risk or overdosing or having denial and I'm just amazed that we don't see this. We're not seeing the triggers. We're not looking deeper into what is bothering them. In the last few, say, some weeks, maybe a month or so, we finally start having these mental health conversations after a chance in that group, right?
00:34:31
Speaker
But again, we are still not talking about the children. We're talking about this mental health epidemic. We can talk about the children and why. In that age group of 15 to 19, suicide is the largest cause of death. But we're still not talking about that children. And I hope this book, I really hope this book changes that conversation going forward. I hope so too. In fact, to everybody listening in, if you're a parent, please read this book.
00:35:00
Speaker
If you are somebody in their 20s or 30s or 40s and you're still not a parent, that's quite okay.
Engaging Parents in Critical Conversations
00:35:08
Speaker
I would still say read this book because you have a nephew, niece, a neighbour, a teenager that you know around you who you could help write. And if you're a teenager and you are curious, I would say that please still do read the book because
00:35:27
Speaker
you might realize the kind of concern that is actually present at the heart of most parents and teachers. While systemically we don't talk of these issues, there are hundreds and thousands of parents across our country who are dealing with children who've been bullied, who've been compromised sexually, who've had to
00:35:54
Speaker
face substance abuse who are addicted to gaming and have needed mental health support and are going through depression. Please do take time to read out this book. You can buy this book of Amazon Flipkart. You can buy it at a crossword at an independent bookstore near you. But I highly recommend that you grab a copy because nowhere in mainstream Indian media will you see such a detailed and honest account
00:36:24
Speaker
of really what is going on with your child behind these closed doors of posh schools and tuition centers and classes that we keep sending our children to. And it's imperative that you might not know about, say, cybersecurity or such details, but you educate yourself for the well-being of your children or you can help out someone in the family.
00:36:50
Speaker
Thank you once again, Josna, you know, for doing this episode. It's been an incredible, you know, heartbreaking as well as important episode, I would say. Do not forget to tune into us on Spotify, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Ghana and HT Smartcuts.