Recently, a student from Mumbai committed suicide and posted a distressing video of it. Indian stand-up comedians are concerned about rising suicide, depression and they have a message for the youngsters. They want students and youngsters, in general, to seek help and not feel ashamed of it. In their Facebook posts, which they have especially written for the students, who lose hope and decide to end their lives, Biswa Kalyan Rath and Mallika Dua describe the problems they went through and how they overcame them.
Biswa, who was once a student of the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur reads ‘My CGPA in college (IIT), motivates students by telling them how he failed in many subjects in his college. His post reads ‘My CGPA in college was 6.83 out of 10 or less, I can’t remember or find that grade sheet. I almost failed in many subjects. I don’t know anything about biotechnology. I did not get placement in any company. To put that in perspective, IITs have a near 100% placement rate.’ He goes on to elaborate how his personal life was also fraught with problems and adds ‘these things made me feel like a spectacular failure.I was depressed for a couple of years and I lost around 8 kgs. I was thin to begin with. Thankfully I had friends to support me throughout. After a couple of years, as I kept doing what I believed I would be good at, things started getting better slowly and steadily.’
Mallika Dua has also speaks up about how important it is to seek help if a person is going through an extremely rough phase as life is not a bed of roses. In her post (see below), she doesn’t fail to add a funny tone to it and says ‘Chemical imbalance is almost entirely correctible. You are very very valuable to your family and loved ones. Please don’t put them and yourself through this. Reach out for professional help if you sense something is wrong. It’s normal’.
All India Bakchod’s Tanmay Bhat has posted a video on YouTube and his Facebook page advising youngsters to befriend their problems:
Earlier last month, Daniel Fernandes, another stand-up artist had also made a video on student suicide, keeping in mind the stress through which students go through during the Board examinations:
We just want to remind all the people, who are going through a difficult phase in their lives right now, that ‘This too shall pass’.
