Indian youth is going through a severe mental health crisis

Regular conversations about mental health, academic pressures, and career aspirations can provide students with a support system

- Rashme Sehgal Is an author and an independent journalist.

Nineteen-year-old Arnav Khaire's photograph shows a handsome young boy with an amazingly innocent look in his dark eyes. A science student, he did what most young students in Mumbai do every day of their lives.

Travel long distances in overcrowded locals to get to college and then journey back home every evening or sometimes late at night.

While travelling to college on November 18, Arnav reportedly requested a man in his compartment to give him a little space. He spoke in Hindi. Immediately, a group of men turned to him, and one of them slapped him hard, demanding to know why he had not spoken in Marathi, and then a group of men proceeded to rain blows on him. The beating left him so traumatised that he returned home in the afternoon and proceeded to bolt the door of his room, where he hanged himself.

Parochial politics has an ugly way of intruding into our lives, as it did in the lives of the Khaire family, where a violent assault left Arnav so shaken that he decided to end his life.

Or take the case of another 16year-old class ten student, Shourya Patil, who studied at one of Delhi's most acclaimed institutions, St Columba's School, and who died by suicide on November 17 by jumping from the Rajendra Place Metro station to the street below, In a suicide note left in his bag, he blamed four teachers for their “sustained humiliation” and mental harassment. What is shocking is that none of his teachers or the four counsellors in the school had any inkling of the stress and insecurity he was undergoing. In fact, some of his friends had subsequently told his parents that he had confided to one of the councillors about his suicidal thoughts, but the councillor had chosen to make light of his confession.