Say no to the idea of Rohith's depression -- until further evidence

A prominent columnist claimed that Rohith Vemula's suicide was not caused by oppression but by depression. After circuitous arguments, he arrived at the confident conclusion that Rohith was clinically depressed. Furthermore, if Rohith had been depressed, then how could the cultural cartel have oppressed him? Impossible!, he declared. According to him, the two conditions are mutually exclusive.

But it makes no sense, you say? Gentle reader, it didn't make much sense to me or a number of other friends, acquaintances, and well-wishers, either.

So to counter his 'either/or' verdict that came down heavily on the side of "clinical depression" driving Rohith to suicide, I wrote the following:

[Rohith's death] is a multi-factorial story with several predisposing factors (examples: his neuropsychology; class; caste; awareness of self; personal perception of limited possibilities for his dreams and abilities; social connectedness or lack thereof; perception of limits to his upward mobility or at least social mobility) and one or two precipitating factors (examples: the latest events such as his expulsion from university; his likely sleep deprivation given he was out on the streets; his perception that he may never recover from this setback; his debts). I am not claiming that I know his personal, unique story precisely, but I am aware, from population studies in different countries/professional groups/subcultures, that just a single variable change could have potentially given him an opportunity to rewrite his life-story (example: if he hadn't been alone that night or, in the Indian context, if he felt like he had something yet to live for, or if he knew he could fly to another country and start a new PhD program, or get a science writing job without a degree but just with 'English with a capital E' and connections, or an uncle in business who will have given him a managerial job). In other words, inequities in life follows you into your preparation for death.

I know no clinician who will isolate one factor from the other in an individual case, but you've managed to declare precisely that from just sitting at your desk and typing a few words. You didn't even consult with somebody who studies depression or suicides in mainstream populations and in socioeconomic subgroups.

But this was three days ago. I've had some time to think and I now wonder why, in my eagerness to emhasize the socioeconomic effect, I failed to completely dismiss the idea of his depression. Yes, American statistics dictate that about 90% of suicides can be attributed to depression and/or substance abuse. But this proportion can vary in different cultural groups. But even that high number leaves at least 10% of suicides unexplained by depression. Had there been a history for Rohith? Nobody who is following his story from a distance, after his death, knows. If we know nothing about his medical history, then why assume depression? Is it because he killed himself? (Does that mean, the four friends who were expelled along with him are not depressed, because they are with us still?) Is it because Rohith was Dalit? Studies have shown that marginalized communities and people with lower socioeconomic status are depressed at higher rates than their mainstream and better-off counterparts. Even P. Sainath, who is reminding people to look at the suicide note in the context of Rohith's suicide, noted that some castes and classes in India experience depression at higher rates than others'. 

Still, no amount of population-based numbers will help one understand definitively whether a particular individual with all the risk factors was depressed. Clinicians use risk factors to guide them in screening their patients, but definitive diagnosis can be made only by collecting and integrating the individual's information.  

So when I saw another prominent writer, one that I respect, acknowledge that social and political matters can lead to or aggravate depression which in turn can push a person to take his own life, I wrote the following:

I want to understand why we assume [Rohith] was "depressed." Why do we not assume that he was stifled, made to or chose to extinguish himself; the social and the political directly acting on him, without any comodifying (i.e., encouraging) effects from depression? Because as far as I know (from public reports of his lifestory) no healthcare professional has ever counseled him; he didn't seek medical help; nobody who knew him personally suggested mental health issues while he was alive. One journalist qualified to write well (but without the necessary health professional background) has made a suggestion of depression, nay, declared a verdict of depression, and none among us has dared to wonder why this may NOT be true in Vemula's case at all.

It is true that epidemiological studies suggest that socioeconomic deprivations play a role in depression manifestations and that societies should work on removing inequities to reduce the proportion of deaths due to *suicidal depression* tendencies occurring along with low SES. But this does not necessarily always translate into one individual's life in any of the many possible directions. For example, suicide is not always preceded by depression (there are a few times when the motivations leading to suicide are defined and varied, even culture-specific) and depression does not always lead to suicide (people even get over a depressive phase if they have the necessary resources and adequate help). And this emerging picture of Vemula suggests that he was a highly resilient individual tapping into as many inner and external resources as was possible for him, until his last few days.

"Depression" has become part of the common lexicon in a facile manner, while the label/diagnosis should actually be given only by a qualified professional. I think the reason we all accept the possibility of "depression" is because it is still seen as this mysterious personal responsibility, a personal crisis -- something an individual has to take care of in the privacy of his/her mind (and with a doctor, if one is lucky enough to have one). But socioeconomic and political conditions, all reasonable, compassionate people will agree, are society's collective responsibilities. By speculating "depression," we just hand society and ourselves yet another assurance that we can all turn our backs and walk away when a struggling youngster (with or without a history of depression) feels he has come to the end of his rope.

My point was that it is possible even for individuals from marginalized communities to never experience chronic depression or suicidal depression. Each one of us may know such exceptional people from our own personal lives. Then why is it not possible for Rohith to have been one such person? In the absence of evidence of a history of depression, why are we stripping Rohith of yet another layer of his truth when he is not here to explain for himself?  Already, his merit achievements have been questioned or ignored under the shaming attitudes towards "quota students"; his Dalit status was suspected and scrutinized after his death; his scholarship was assumed to have been awarded due to nothing more than his "Dalit" credentials? Now his resilience despite his rise from his difficult background, so well described by Sudipto Mondal here, is also questioned? The odds were stacked so steeply against him even before he was born. Yet, he persevered. And by sheer hard-work and temerity, he arrived at the one place, a place of higher learning and intellectualism, where he hoped he would come to belong. From all public accounts, he was exceptional, extraordinary -- he was the one who aimed for Carl Sagan's stars -- and he accomplished this journey mostly on his own. Does he sound like he was prone to depression to you? Whether you answer, 'Yes', 'No', or 'Don't know', let me tell you: none of us know the correct answer.  

So why do we as a society insist on seeing past visible acts of exclusionary politics, tangible discrimination, and systemic indifference meted out to students of marginalized communities, only to search for excuses and latch onto explanations about a little-understood, invisible-to-the-naked-eye, intangible mental health issue that may or may not have existed in one who was not examined for it?

Until, a healthcare professional who examined him in his worldly life comes forward with a diagnosis that was made previously, say no to any speculation of 'Rohith's depression'. Emphatically.

                                                                     *****

Here are two examples of people from different walks of life who appear to not be afflicted with depression. Their approach to life is very different from that of the average middle-class person.
Stephen Batchelor, a secular Buddhist, has said:  
Death is certain, its time is uncertain. So let me live this day as if it is the last day of my life.

The portrait of this young lady from New Delhi, India, on Humans of New York has received 249,779 'likes' as of this day. She says: 
I don't have any dreams. What's the point? I'm poor. I don't have any skills. I wash the utensils in the kitchen-- that's what I do. But I like the girls I work with. We make fun together. I tell jokes. They tell jokes. I'm happy-- it's in my nature.

Who is to say Rohith could not have been like them -- adopting a pragmatic, forgiving, and no-unnecessary-sweat approach to life? A Carl Sagan admirer, he must have cherished this saying, 'Aim for the moon, even if you miss, you will fall among the stars'. I join Pratap Bhanu Mehta in concluding that at the time of his death Rohith Vemula was 'yearning for a space beyond power and rancour.' And maybe even beyond depression.

                                                                        *****

Name a country in Europe

My son, Rahul, who was a toddler when I started this blog, is now 9 years old, loves live theatre and music, and cannot decide whether he wants to be a veterinarian (like his mother) or a musician (like his idol Paul McCartney) or both. [Word of advice from mom: Just focus on becoming Paul McCartney, kiddo!] 

But this fall he surprised himself and us all by writing comedy like his dad does. In fact, he went a step further than dad by actually enjoying being on stage. Here is the skit Rahul wrote and performed this week together with his theatre class, Act Two Comedy Troupe. His teacher, Tamara Kist, edited the skit big time and deserves credit for the final version, while dad, Melvin, gets some credit for helping with first draft.

Teacher: Class, today we're going to learn about Europe, where many of our ancestors came from.  Can anybody name a country in Europe?

[Noah raises his hand.] Yes, Noah?

Noah: Chicken. [Class giggles.]

Teacher: Chicken?! Oh, you mean Turkey?

Noah: Oh yes, Turkey. I knew it had something to do with lunch meat.

Teacher: Can anyone else name a country in Europe?

[Derek raises his hand.] Derek?

 

Derek: Ham?

Cole: That's a lunch meat, too! 

Teacher: Nice try, Derek. But there's no country called Ham.

Derek: But my grandfather says we came from some place that begins with the word Ham.

Teacher: Hamburg? That's a city in Germany.

Lamia: Is that where hamburgers come from?

Teacher: Actually, yes. Can anyone else name a country in Europe?

Cole: I know a country! I know one!

Teacher: Yes, Cole?

Cole: Australia!

Noah: That's a good one bro!

Cole: I know, right? That's a country, right Teach?

Teacher: Yes, it's a country. Unfortunately, it is not in Europe. 

Cole: Oh.

Rahul: Isn't that where they filmed the Sound of Music? All those rolling hills? Not that I've ever watched it or anything.

Teacher: You mean Austria. THAT is in Europe.

Lamia: Austria sounds a lot like a shortened version of Australia.

Teacher: I suppose so, Lamia.

Noah: Teacher?

Teacher: Yes, Noah?

Noah: Does Austria have short kangaroos?

Teacher: No Noah, it does not.

[Rahul raises his hand.] Yes, Rahul?

Rahul: Greece.

Teacher: Very good. Greece is a country in southeastern Europe.

Rahul: I knew that because they filmed Mama Mia there. Beaches, blue water, boats. Not that I have ever watched it.

Derek: Who would name a country grease? I hate grease with my food.

Cole: Hey, isn't that a movie with Olivia Newton-John and John Travolta?

Rahul: Yes. They sing the song Summer Nights in that. Not that I've ever seen it.

Lamia: I'm Hungry.

Teacher: Is your family from Hungary, Lamia?

Lamia: No. My stomach is growling. Is it lunch time yet?

Teacher [looks at her watch]: I guess it is. You can go eat now.

Rahul: Yeah, I feel like some turkey.

Cole: You are a turkey.

Derek: Just no grease, OK?

   ~***~

Madhuri Shekhar's 'A Nice Indian Boy.'

Here is the best thing I can say about how good the play 'A Nice Indian Boy' was: that I went to see it twice. 

The first time, on Valentine's Day, on my own, because it was rated PG-13 and because we have no friends or babysitters here yet that we can request taking care of our kids while we take some time on our own -- like a normal, parental couple would. So Melvin's Valentine's Day gift for me was to drop me off at Victory Gardens, take the kids for a treat in a nearby bakery and pick me up again after the show.  So pushing the guilt aside, I grabbed a 'Mumbai mule' from the lovely bar downstairs at Victory Gardens and headed up to the show -- telling myself that I love live theatre and it keeps me sane and connected in my isolated 'all work and no play' (pun intended) world.

It was quickly obvious that the play's PG-13 rating does not apply to Melvin's or my values and sensibilities and that this could have been a family outing for us. Adding to my regret was the fact that another extended family in the audience had brought along some kids -- and at least two appeared to be of my girls' ages (pre-teens). Two more appeared to be in their teens. I texted to my family during intermission that we are coming back again. Together.  Melvin's response was 'huh?' 

So we went back again yesterday-- February 15th.  I gave a crash course to my kids on DDLJ (which is referred to quite a bit in some scenes), Mumbai's cosmopolitan Marathis, Ganesha, Indian stereotypes, parental magnanimity, sibling rivalry, sibling love and support, liberal values, first generation immigrant parents' idiosyncracies, second generation's insularity, first generation's expectations of second generation's behaviors towards them. And finally, the elephant in the room and it is what you think (if you clicked on the link above) but it is also not what you think.  It is not even Ganesha who as a deity has a huge presence in the play.  It is the Indian's expectations about who is a true or a good, natural-born Indian and this little-discussed -- perhaps light-hearted but perhaps not -- reverse "discrimination". I also told them not to be shy about a very explicit kissing scene, putting it in context thus: "I allow you to watch Western movies where men kill men with one fast-drawn gun. If you are allowed to watch that, you can see this without any doubt."  I warned them that on a couple occasions they will hear some swear words -- but nothing that they haven't already heard on their school grounds or from my mouth when I am really mad about something. (Yes, so I said it out loud and publicly. Now flog me.)  Whether the crash course helped or not, I cannot be sure; whether the kids followed every dialog or understood every issue, of that too I cannot be sure (my kids' ages range from 8 to 12). But of this I am sure: that the big-picture impact of this beautiful, sensitive, witty, clever play will only make them more self-assured Indian American children and better human beings overall. That the play emphasizes the triumph of love and mutual respect for all -- whether separated by race, community or sexual orientation -- and by all -- whether by parents or progeny; brown or white -- is what they would ultimately remember. Of that I am sure. 

The California-based playwright Madhuri Shekhar (Chennai roots) appears to be talented and extremely insightful. All the actors were amazing -- but Alka Nayyar and Kamal Hans, even more so. Perhaps, they were just a tad older and much more experienced as actors, but they commanded the stage, even more so than the actors who played the younger characters (Kaiser Ahmed, Riley McIlveen, Suzan Faycurry).  

If you have a chance to see this Rasaka Theatre production, please do so.  Or better still, perform this play in your local community.  It is a lovely, lovely play.  

Director, Anna Bahow, on the play and the playwright: 'A Nice Indian Boy' is a romantic comedy with familiar tropes -- that are anything but familiar when immigrant assimilation collides with the adoption of a foreign heritage. The play challenges our traditioal concepts of ethnicity ad marriage. Shekhar has such respect for her characters and the humor is generous to all.  
          

Home Alone -- Canine Version

You think you will never lose your dog. Until the morning when you and the rest of your "loser" family jump into the van and take off in a hurry. For the next half-hour you don't even realize that your 100-lb dog is missing from her usual seat at the back of the van. When you eventually notice, you zip back through the morning traffic, only to find her curled up at the front door step of your home, waiting patiently, trustingly, but with a quizzical look on her face. And when you open the door of the van to tell her it's OK, she can climb in now, she jumps up and bounds towards you, happy to be part of the pack again. Even your youngest child has felt let down by you, and quite frightened, when you unexpectedly had to make your children wait in the after-school program one day. But your once-feral dog--she just accepts that, for whatever reason, the pack was separated, and that's the way tough life is. Why make it tougher? She just nuzzles up to you, the alpha member, touches you gently with her nose and reassures you that all is well that ends well.  
 

Goodbye Sam, Hello Samantha!

As a painfully shy kid with no brothers or boy cousins and with little chance of meeting and interacting boys, as I had gone to an all-girls' school, I was both curious about boys and scared of them. They were aliens as far as I was concerned. So when I heard Cliff Richard's song 'Goodbye Sam, hello Samantha' in my teens in the '80s, I loved it! The song validated and put into perspective my own ignorance of matters of the opposite sex, albeit in a 180 degree manner.  I dug it up yesterday when my children -- two pre-teen girls and a boy -- were having a friendly girls vs. boys argument. As expected, there were giggles, incredulous looks, 'what? no waaayyyy!' type of protests. They are still at an age when it is hard to imagine that a member of the opposite sex will really, truly steal you away from everything that matters to you and your kind -- whatever that means in this somewhat (relatively speaking) post-gender segregation era. 



Then this afternoon, my husband got in on the family conversation, which by now is about the song itself rather than about the mysteries of the opposite sex. There is a lot of humor embedded in this song, is the obvious adult consensus. (Of course, the kids can't deny that either, as evidenced by the giggles of a particular eight-year old.) Additionally, my husband thinks it is a song that may have raised no eyebrows then, but perhaps would be considered as too earnest, too innocent, too cheesy, no street cred whatsoever.  It is so straightforward and simple in its innocence and therefore would not do an easy cakewalk in our more-cynical times. He may have a point. We came up with two more songs that sound like they will be subjected to some scrutiny in today's world, even though they are both full of light-hearted humor.  Here are those songs:

Abba's 'Does your mother know?' (which I love whole-heartedly). 

'Save all your kisses for me' by Brotherhood of man. 

       

Lahiri's 'The Lowland': A Three-Way Portrait About Human Individuality, Strength and Resilience

Jhumpa Lahiri's second novel and fourth book, 'The Lowland' does not appear to have won all hearts over or run away with numerous awards as her previous books have done (although a finalist for the Booker and also the National Book Award, she did not go home with those honors); yet to me it is her best book thus far.

The characters are unique and the story line suggests that she has been willing to take a risk and deviate from the insular world of accomplished Bengali Americans and their generally privileged American Bengali progeny.  The stories of Udayan and Gauri are anything but predictable or safe choices for a writer beloved by critics and American readers alike. Instead, each of the main characters, including Subhash and Bela, are memorable and distinct, complex and tragic, and they live with the reader long after the last page has been closed. How Lahiri, who comes across as having had the best of most things -- including a stable and secure upbringing in the New England area -- can get into the heart and head of Gauri, the troubled female protagonist from another world, another time, is a puzzle to me. Lahiri exemplifies what she has always been good at -- i.e., depicting the inner lives and turmoils of her characters and deftly drawing you in to care about them forever.

It seems that the main discontentment (in reviews and online comments) with this book is about her understanding of the Naxalite movement (as an 'outsider'), her depiction of the Calcutta politics of the '60s and '70s (as an 'outsider'), and the impression that she writes for a non-Indian audience.  But my own brief disenchantment arose due to the quality of her writing in the first 30 pages or so.  It seemed passive, distant, hurried, with a singular goal of establishing the sociopolitical milieu, painting the landscape and explaining the geography, all in a whirlwind of numerous sentences beginning with the word 'They'. She gave an impression of going through the motions of setting up the atmosphere without ever breathing it in.  It was almost as if it was written as an afterthought in response to an editor's note that some introduction into the Calcutta of yore is needed.  But once she (and we as the readers) get through this necessary exercise, a private world of deeply-wounded and remarkably stoic characters opens up to us and we end up being enmeshed into their extraordinary, unexpected and melancholic stories. 

We become privy to her characters' pain -- their sorrows, their sadnesses, their loneliness--at once together and apart from each other.  From then on, it is not just the politics of West Bengal and Calcutta,it is the politics of the old and the new, of ideology in the home and outside, of parents and sons, of in-laws. There is so much deeply-moving character and content, and the author carefully lays it all out for us to read, feel, see and never conclude. Or at least conclude only when all is gradually revealed at the end, as she subtly and carefully peels a layer here, shares a detail there, leaves a gentle clue or two. For example, when Gauri was questioned by the investigators there was only one name that she did not truthfully know. This fact nagged at me while I was reading, but I realized the significance of the detail only towards the end.  Apart from it being a crucial detail to the novel, it made me stop and think. We may not all be revolutionaries (or destructive social elements -- depending on our viewpoints) and commit heroic (or unspeakable acts), but when we decide to act at any level, we affect people, even those whose names we may not have cared to know. Patience is required of us as readers and it is well worth our while as our understanding descends eventually but gently about the controversial choices made. Our compassion sets in for all those individual lives affected immediately (and for a generation or two to come) by the course of unwavering and steady but cold social reality since the dawn of the people's history.     

If the child is the father of a man, what becomes of the girl-child without a childhood?  
The story of Bela is a quintessential painful and poignant story of resilience in a child -- yet not a single review I had browsed earlier on, touched upon it or alluded to it (which was a good thing, because I stumbled upon it without any expectations; it is a story that will always be remembered by me and passed on to others broken and recovering from family tragedies). Even though I was bewildered by Gauri's choice -- the one that was finally truly hers to make, own, and live by, however controversial and irreversible -- and every vulnerable fiber in my body rebelled against it, I came to understand in the end that this is the punishment she metes out to herself and her kind. Painful though it is, the logic of depriving your own flesh and blood what was deprived by you to another offspring's life, seeps through, and I came to understand that this is only way in which Gauri redeems herself, at least in my eyes. Yes, but Bela pays the price.

Even before the secret that holds Gauri apart is revealed to us, Lahiri tells us so much more about her early life. Just the details of young Gauri explain to us the comment that Udayan's mother makes to Subhash: She's too withdrawn, too aloof to be a mother.  She is talking about a young woman who was born to an ailing, older couple, who send her and Manash (the only sibling somewhat close to her age) to live with the grandparents. And how much attention could they have given her despite their love? Her numerous older sisters are forever absent from her life and the only person who is a constant in her childhood and youth is Manash. Hansel and Gretel usually make a great fairy tale, but not always natural-born parents. It is telling that in a city teeming with life, Gauri was depicted as usually gazing at it from the distance of her small balcony -- when she wasn't absorbed in her books. A young partner, newly in love, could have potentially drawn her into the midst of this promising, busy world, but Udayan too frequently kept disappearing on her while he was still alive. Her in-laws kept their own aloofness which turned into full-fledged resentment after Udayan's death. So much so that when Udayan looks at her face just before being killed -- which he regretfully understands as his final abandonment of her -- he sees only a look of disillusion. After all this, how could a young woman, as alone in this world as her, handle motherhood with ease?  To give as a mother, it is usually necessary to receive as a child. This is one area in which Bela, under Subhash's undivided attention, fierce protection, and steady, solid love, actually fares much better than Gauri.

A few words about what Gauri's character means to me:
A month or so before I began to read 'The Lowland', I lamented the fact that South Asian diasporic fiction focuses on women who follow their husbands across continents and experience domestic and cross-cultural adjustments. I regretted that women like me -- having arrived for grad school on our own, just like the men -- are rarely depicted. Juggling grad school, career and personal life, the additional pressures and extra avenues for isolation we face, are less well-known than those that our men face. Ironically, I declared that even Jhumpa Lahiri does not write about my kind of first generation women. Yet, here is Gauri, slowly but surely submerging herself into her intellectual passions, earning a PhD scholarship, riding the ebb and flow of her academic life, glowing in the seasonal fluctuations of her students' respect and love when knowing fully well that they will be gone at the end of their course, if not at the end of the semester.  For the two children whose adversity she must feel responsible for, she balances out by helping a few college kids, I suppose. Still, I could so easily be her. A thin line separates her madness from mine. With my love for all things academic and my passion for what I imagine is an unfettered intellectual life, I would so want to be her, minus her wrongs and humiliations.  

One of the strongest and most interesting female characters in South Asian diasporic fiction, Gauri may be somewhat flawed but she comes equipped with her own internal moral compass. Her strength comes from her willingness to be alone, to take the more difficult and less-trodden (and near-empty) path, and to live out her life on her own terms even if it means being alone with her own thoughts and regrets.       

Too many descriptions of the book out there, emphasize, so predictably and in a banal way, the love beyond death between Gauri and Udayan -- yet, I don't see it as that simplistic.  There was love and then there is some hate. But more than anything else, what binds her to her first husband, her dead husband, is the unspeakable secret she shares with him.  Subhash is a strong enough character on his own -- even Gauri recognizes that from the beginning to the end. Yet, several reviews out there, describe him as a sibling who has had to live in the shadow created by his younger brother.  I can't understand for sure whether Lahiri is sympathetic to Udayan and his politics, but her depiction of him in the final pages is full of compassion with a tinge of sorrow about the lack of choices for youth driven with a sense of righting society's wrongs; for youth thirsting for social justice.  In the end, although Naxal politics provide a background and a springboard for this book and open a window into a Calcutta that was largely unknown to most of us who came of age after the '60s and '70s, what really captures us are the individual characters that Lahiri was bold and imaginative enough to create and stand by in a world that did not expect her to break out of her own mold. She took a risk and I love her more for it.                    

Catherine Clarke's art therapy

If you are a local, you've got to go see Catherine Clarke's creations in the name of art therapy at Harper College. If you are a skeptic about cathartic art having class, grace and simplicity, you've got to fly into this Chicago suburb before November 3rd of 2014.  Interestingly, my favorites are different from the ones mentioned in this write-up.  And even Clarke's written descriptions to each of her creations have a stand-alone power to move an intersection of your heart and mind that you never knew existed.   

My favorites are the ones about 'these days are numbered' and 'the artist's cafe'.  And a few more. 

For the article in a local newspaper, click here.