Who Decides What Counts As ‘Mad’? When Did Mental Health Become A Punchline ? (Photo on Pixabay)
When will we stop calling It ‘Madness’? When did seeking help for your mind become a sign of weakness? Why is it that in a world that celebrate physical fitness and productivity, talking about depression still invites laughter or disbelief?
So, depression now happens only to people who have “no work.” At least, that’s what a recent celebrity interview taught us — proving once again that in India, mental health is everyone’s favourite comedy genre. Forget awareness campaigns, we already have punchlines.
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More than 1 billion people worldwide live with mental health disorders, according to the World Health Organization (WHO) — a staggering figure that exposes a silent pandemic of anxiety, depression, and despair. These are not distant issues; they are here, in our homes, our classrooms, and our workplaces. Yet, for millions, mental suffering remains hidden behind the mask of “strength,” buried beneath stigma and silence.
Mental disorders such as anxiety and depression affect people across all ages and backgrounds. Globally, they account for one of the biggest causes of long-term disability.
In India, that pain is often dismissed as a personal flaw. Mental distress is still branded as a “moral failure,” a lack of faith, or “weak willpower.” The stigma runs deep — socially, culturally, and institutionally. And we have built an entire cultural manual that translates “pain” into “personal failure.”As psychiatrist Dr. C. J. John pointed out on One India channel, even today people casually call someone “mad” for showing symptoms of depression or psychosis, as if mental health problems were moral shortcomings rather than medical conditions.
This mentality was echoed recently when actress Krishna Prabha joked in an interview that “depression, overthinking and mood swings come to people who have no work.” Her comment, though offhand, reflects a much larger societal blindness, one that turns human pain into a punchline.
But the reality is darker than we admit. In Kerala, often praised for its social awareness, about 39,962 suicides were recorded between January 2021 and March 2025, according to data. 6,227 suicides in 2021, rising to 10,177 in 2022, and peaking at 10,994 in 2023. While 2024 saw a small dip to 10,779, the first two and a half months of 2025 already reported 1,785 suicides. The numbers rose sharply after the COVID-19 pandemic, which, as Dr. Arun B. Nair from Thiruvananthapuram Medical College notes, left “deep psychological scars across all sections of society.”
The message is clear: awareness exists, but empathy has eroded.
India’s mental health system remains severely underfunded and overburdened. Despite growing cases, little money is allocated for clinician training or for integrating mental health into primary care. The claim that mental health is a “private issue” only fragments society further. Structural factors — poverty, unemployment, discrimination, and urban stress continually weigh people down, while social media fuels feelings of inadequacy. Teenagers scrolling through others’ “perfect lives” often end up questioning their own worth.
If India truly wishes to confront its mental health crisis, a fundamental shift in perception is needed. Mental health must be seen not as a personal deficit but as a collective responsibility. Experts call for campaigns that hold institutions accountable and amplify the voices of those who have lived through mental distress. Mental well-being should be treated as a citizen’s right, not an act of charity.
On-screen, Malayalam cinema has already begun this conversation. Characters like Saji in Kumbalangi Nights and Aby in Odum Kuthira Chadum Kuthira represent those silenced by stigma. Saji’s emotional breakdown and his courage to seek help shatters the myth that men must suppress pain. Aby on other hand, represents those trapped by society’s misunderstanding, fighting to survive in a world that dismisses or labels their struggles as ‘abnormal’. In contrast, people like Krishna Prabha reflect a larger public that fail to understand the reality of mental illness – not out of cruelty, but out of a lack of awareness and empathy.
Experts say India needs a paradigm shift. Mental health must be reframed as a collective responsibility, not a private failing. We must learn to listen better. What if “first aid” for depression meant lending an ear without judgment? What if awareness replaced mockery, and empathy replaced indifference?
Mental health is not a punchline, nor is it a weakness. It is a mirror to our collective humanity — and right now, that reflection is cracked. The real question is: how long will we keep looking away?
