Another Bollywood production, another setback for issues related to mental health. Srijit Mukherji has come out with his take on Satyajit Ray’s work. He begins the anthology on a wrong-footing. The first episode of the series, “Forget me not”, is a retelling of Ray’s short story, “Bipin Choudhury’r Smritibhrom”. The protagonist loses his touch with reality after a lifetime of waywardness and arrogance, ending up in a modern psychiatric facility which is still “dark, prohibiting and dehumanizing”, just as it was in Ray’s own time. Mental health services have progressed beyond what is shown in the short film. Yet, the plot clings to age-old stereotypes such as mental breakdowns being the result of bad karma that leads one to inhospitable facilities. This is a painful reminder of contemporary storytellers being out of touch with the realities of mental health.

Another recent television series, The Family Man (Season 2), makes light work of couples therapy and counselling. Here, a couple confronts interpersonal issues in their marriage and the wife wishes to avail of a counsellor’s guidance. Her husband, like most people, is hesitant to bring another person into the matter. Nonetheless, he signs up for it. But the whole therapy plot descends into a comedic cesspool thereafter and, ultimately, ends up being a ridiculous affair. The counsellor/couple therapist is caricatured: he tries to be smart, with his funny quotes and aphorisms, but is shown to be money-minded, forcing patients to buy his books. In a country battling monumental ignorance concerning therapy and counselling, the plot is unlikely to encourage Indians to seek help from mental healthcare professionals. Seeking help for mental health, something that is hard to achieve, takes quite a few steps backwards with such portrayals even if the latter are merely for comic relief. Little wonder then that citizens prefer visiting a faith healer or even a quack instead of seeking help from a psychiatrist or a counsellor.

The portrayal of mental health issues requires thought and empathy. However, the show business has been averse to addressing mental health and has even mocked mental healthcare workers. Sadma and Dilwale portrayed the sufferers as clown and conniver; in Damini and Kyon Ki..., the mental health provider is incompetent, and apathetic; My Name is Khan and Black had reductionist depictions of developmental disorders; Dear Zindagi provided a rather unrealistic view of psychotherapy. This triviality is mirrored by society and successive governments.

Cinema has the ability to influence collective thought and beliefs as much as social media. It is worth mentioning that the film, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, single-handedly brought the practice of electroconvulsive therapy to a complete halt in most asylums in the United States of America with its negative, punitive and inhumane portrayal of the practice. However, ECT is a potent, life-saving tool in the treatment of patients with suicidal tendencies and acute depression and it has made a comeback of sorts in the past couple of decades as a mode of treatment. Of late, Hindi film-makers have tried to be empathetic in their depiction of mental illness. But movies like Taare Zameen Par, Hichki or Karthik Calling Karthik, to cite a few examples, are few and far between.

Reel and real lives are reflections of each other. The far-reaching effects of the silver screen are well-known; it has the ability to cut through cultural, social and federal boundaries. Therefore, films as well as the messages they send out are weapons of subliminal thought dissemination. To some, the message can be heresy, for others, it could be epiphanic. We must make scrupulous efforts to not reduce matters of the mind to a rhetoric of mockery and spectacle. The onus is upon the avant garde to lay the foundations of a society that not only believes in integration across the lines of race, caste and economy but also humanizes physical and mental illnesses.

Mayank Rai is a psychiatrist at AIIMS, Rishikesh. Debanjan Banerjee is a psychiatrist at NIMHANS, Bangalore