What “Pagal” Does to Us

A doctor's view from inside Kashmir’s strained mental-health system, and why one word stands in the way of healing.

- Dr. Fiaz Maqbool Fazili

Language in Kashmir carries everything we've lived through: loss, laughter, love, fear, and endurance.

But hidden in our everyday speech is one word we toss around without thinking, even though it can wound deeply.

That word is “pagal.”

It echoes in markets when a shopkeeper scolds an apprentice. It appears in classrooms when children repeat what they hear at home. It surfaces at kitchen tables when a parent talks about a child who has become withdrawn.

Every time it is used, it turns someone’s struggle into an insult.

“Pagal” does not describe an illness. It judges. It reaches a man carrying years of trauma, and a student struggling under pressure.

The word flattens every form of emotional pain into one dismissive category.

It tells a person their struggle is unreal, unimportant, and undeserving of care.

Modern medicine gives names to these conditions, and each, including depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and PTSD, has clear symptoms and treatments. The brain reacts to stress and imbalance the way any organ does.

So, when someone fighting depression cannot get out of bed, families often label them “pagal.”

This difference in understanding reveals how deeply stigma has settled into our social life.

Kashmir has lived through experiences that would shake anyone. Families have carried loss, uncertainty, unemployment, fear and loneliness for years.