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Magazine
MENTAL HEALTH
Fear, rage and anger
KANKANA BASU
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As Mumbai comes to terms with the losses of 26/11, educationists and psychologists are worrying more about the effects of unrestrained telecast on young minds.
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“The images on television captured the real world outside, one they’ll be facing very soon. Why shield them from the truth?” Dr. Janaki Ananthakrishnan
“Children are particularly vulnerable to visuals of violence and one should censor their exposure to them.” Psychologist Dr. Jyoti Maheshwari.
Photo: PTI
Shifting emotions: Children were forced to grow up almost overnight.
The funerals are over and the blame games have begun. And the famous Mumbai spirit is conspicuous by its absence. As the political tableau shifts, as city architects desperately try to figure out ways to undo the damage to the beautiful facades of the Taj and the Trident, as grieving families come to terms with bereavement and loss, sociologists, educationists and psychologists in Mumbai are a worried lot.
A little girl of seven sits sketching in a modest home in the Girgaum, Chowpatty area of South Mumbai. Her strokes are fast and furious and the intensity almost frightening. The theme is always the same, a towering inferno with blackened bodies falling out of the windows of a building. The girl refuses to talk or answer questions. She has been like this ever since the terrorists attacked Mumbai, says her mother, Shanta Hegde, tiredly. Shanta’s brother was one of the victims of the firing at CST. As the family crowded around the television waiting for shreds of news, no one noticed the distraught little girl watching the recurrent images of violence. Evening brought the news that the little girl’s favourite uncle was dead and the girl withdrew from the world.
Psychological impact
The city is facing the worst case of psychological trauma. Children as young as eight and nine are being diagnosed with phobia, chronic anxiety, panic attacks and paranoia. Pre-teen children are far too young to comprehend what is suddenly happening to the city and their loved ones. The psychological impact of this particular terrorist strike has been very deep and disturbing for youngsters, says Mumbai-based psychiatrist Dr. Nirmala Rao
Dr. Janaki Ananthakrishnan, principal of Walsingham House School, recalls the day when school resumed after the bloodbath. “I announced in the morning assembly that we would be going back to our usual academic routine. But from the frightened expressions on the older girls’ faces I could see that no one really believed me. I paused wondering what to say next and then concluded by saying that terrorism is here to stay and every child should learn to be brave,” says Dr. Ananthakrishnan. She then had a problem on her hands in the shape of a fifth standard child who simply refused to go to class. “She sat in my cabin shivering and crying for hours. It was only after I convinced her that security had been beefed up and no terrorist could enter unannounced into a class-room situated on the first floor that the girl was persuaded to join her classmates,” reminisces Dr. Ananthakrishnan.
There has been a huge hue and cry about the uncensored images of blood, gore and violence telecast repeatedly on television. The brutally frank commentary describing the step-by-step developments of the entire attack had parents feeling rather edgy about the repercussions on their children but Dr. Ananthakrishnan begs to differ. “You cannot buffer children from reality, no matter how harsh it may be. The images they saw on television captured the real world outside, the one they’ll be facing very soon. Why shield them from the truth?” she queries.
“I instructed people to switch off the television periodically during the attack. It was imperative to maintain a semblance of normalcy at home by interspersing television time with domestic activities. Indulging in mundane chores is a great stress-buster during times of crisis,” advises child psychologist Dr. Jyoti Maheshwari.
While she believes that the truth needs to be told, a constant hammering of unpleasant facts could have adverse effects on the human mind, particularly tender young minds. “Children are particularly vulnerable to visuals of violence and one should censor their exposure to them. Indulging in too much of analytical discussions about the attack before the children is also not a good idea, in my opinion. On the flip side, the entire terrorist episode was an opportunity for parents to instil good values in children and illustrate how bad actions on the part of a few could affect thousands of citizens adversely,” she says.
Dr. Maheshwari’s advice to parents of affected children is to form support groups and include happy things like picnics, movies and sleep over parties with friends to demonstrate that the past has been left behind and life has to move on.
Unsettling aspect
One of the most unsettling things has been a change in the mental picture of the average terrorist. While earlier he was as a remote, bearded, middle-aged figure carrying an AK-47, he now comes across as a Versace-wearing youngster with boy-next-door looks. “Only boys-next-door don’t carry Kalashnikov assault rifles and shoot at women, children and stray dogs with cold smiles of pleasure on their faces,” says 19-year-old Aniket Varma, who still can’t believe how young the terrorists were. With a strong rumour about a handful of terrorists roaming free and waiting for an opportunity to strike again, Aniket admits to feeling jittery all the time. “Every other person strolling down a mall or a multiplex resembles Kasab in my eyes. Am I hallucinating?” he asks worriedly.
Others like him are also never free from a sense of impending disaster and panic these days. Man Fook Lew, a Mumbaiker of Chinese origin and an employee at Khandahar in the Taj, had taken the day off on Wednesday. He woke up on Thursday morning to the news that the restaurant had been reduced to a pile of rubble and most of his colleagues were dead. Since then, Lew dreams of running down a blood-splattered labyrinth searching for an exit while footsteps chase him relentlessly.
Moving on to older ones, a survey of Mumbai’s teenagers and young adults shows a paradigm shift in emotions. The prevalent feeling is that of rage, a burning anger with the system and a steely resolve to rectify matters.
With every youngster reading newspapers, there is widespread discontent at the way the government disregarded warnings of a terrorist strike. Add to that frustration at the inadequacy of equipment and lack of method in the city’s security forces. “How can you expect our poor cops with their outdated rusty guns to confront terrorists with their AK-56 rifles? It is like pitting the Rani of Jhansi against Darth Vader in battle. If it wasn’t so tragic, it would be laughable,” snorts disgusted collegian, Kabir Salvi.
The love-hate equation between the Mumbai police and civilians unexpectedly blossomed into love and adulation after 26/11 with organisations, both online and offline, urging Mumbaikers to step up and hug/shake hands with or compliment and gift roses to cops on duty in a demonstration of appreciation. “It’s fashionable to blame the police for every malfunction but does anyone bother to think that the average havaldar is underpaid and overworked and works in the midst of hostile and suspicious civilians? More often than not, he is sleep-deprived, denied a proper holiday for years and has a dozen domestic problems back home. Is it fair to perennially criticise the inefficiency of such a person?” asks 17-year-old Satnam Bali who plans to join an NGO that tries to better the working conditions for the policemen
Changing focus
Career-oriented goals are now rapidly shifting focus for students. “The terrorist strike was an eye-opener. It shows us that no matter who shifts into the seats of power, we are doomed to have corruption and inefficiency at the top. Some of us should be seriously thinking of entering politics ourselves. It’s about time that the government got fresh blood,” says Shubham Saxena, a std. XII student.
One of the few positive things to emerge after the disaster is the heart-warming communal unity in the city. “It is evident to everybody that the enemy is outside and not among us,” says Mariam Shiekh, a school teacher.
The photographs in the newspapers continue to haunt. The front page shots of the captured terrorist Mohammmad Ajmal Kasab begging for death in an unknown destination generates mixed feelings in youngsters.
“The b****** should be tortured slowly and then killed,” snarls 19-year-old Avinash Pradhan who cannot forget or forgive the killing of children at CST. His best friend, Tulika Choudhury, feels differently. “You don’t know what prompted him to take up this assignment. Maybe he had his reasons,” she muses.
The study of a terrorist’s mind makes for an absorbing (though disturbing) project. The extreme youth of the present lot implies that indoctrination started pretty early. There are terrorists and terrorists. Some do it for money, others are committed to the cause and then there are the young and gullible who are brainwashed by unscrupulous mentors (who rarely face the music when things go wrong). “While we can’t do much about the mercenaries and the fanatics, it is the last lot that we should try and tackle,” says Atanu Mitra, a professor of the social sciences. “To the affluent set in Mumbai, I would suggest that besides keeping an eye on the children, every citizen should extend himself to see that the children of neighbours, maid servants, drivers, liftmen are also herded away from contaminating influences. After all, terrorists are not restricted to a certain community (as we now know) and what is to say that the survivors of today won’t make terrorists tomorrow?”
The present crisis extends not only to the emotional and physical planes but also to the spiritual one. Nikunj Bhatia, who holds religious classes for suburban children, has never had to field such angry questions as now. His students want to know why the innocent faced such terrible deaths and why babies and children suffered. The gentle teacher suddenly finds religious scriptures inadequate to explain the unfolding events and wonders where we are heading. “One of my students told me that when he grows up he will infiltrate Pakistan and blow up the best hotel in Karachi? After teaching the religious scriptures for decades, to have one’s student say that he wants to be a terrorist…” he pauses, struggling with his emotions, “…I have failed as a teacher. This is undoubtedly the saddest day of my life.”
Confusion, fear and devastation followed by anger, determination and resolve. Resolve to take one’s destiny into one’s own hands instead of leaving it to figureheads. 26/11 will stand as a landmark date when every child in Mumbai grew up overnight.
The words of Siraj Ayesha Sayani capture the philosophy of the city youth rather crisply. “We are lucky to live in times that allow us to reach out to people and connect,” she says. As long as we do not let the autoimmune diseases of insecurity and hatred destroy us, there is hope for the human race to become one complex interconnected body.
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