“Ek Pyaali Kissa” is a project led by Aishaanyaa Tewari as a part of the Lucknow Hub. It aimed to unpack Hindi speaking urban women's mental health experiences within their socio-economic context through storytelling. With the support of the Study Hall Education Foundation (SHEF), the project engaged with women weekly (between 13 Nov – 4 Dec, 2021) via a combination of community circles and participative tools and games to facilitate mental health dialogue as well as also to impart fundamental information around how ‘Mental Health’ is defined within clinical circles. This initiative reached 24 women above the age of 35 who come from lower to lower-middle income backgrounds from Lucknow. These women are mothers to female students studying at SHEF’s Prerana Girls’ School.

The goal of the first interaction was to use the technique of listening circle from the philosophy of Restorative Justice and create a safe space for women to have conversations about things that matter to them. Most women shared about financial difficulties, recent opportunities to socialize due to religious festivities, domestic violence and the burden of care that falls on them. During the conversation women cried, hesitated talking deeply about their situations and agreed that they are not asked how they are doing/about their wellbeing, even when they are the one taking care of everyone around them.

The goal of the second interaction was to dive deeper into the technicalities of what is mental health and specific resistances in having mental health dialogue such as the use of the stigmatized schema “pagal” (Hindi equivalent of ‘crazy’) to see mental health through. We talked about the difference and intermingling of our physical self (experienced through our shareer or body) and our psychological self (experienced through our mann) and how we experience mental health, issues and if not taken care of well even illness. When asked, women could not name any mental illness, in fact they believed mental illness to be an umbrella term often synonymous with psychosis. We talked about how so many of our daily experiences of anger, irritability arise out of really stressful factors present around us such as our lack of control on running our household, being able to plan our lives based on our aspirations. And yet in these instances of expressing distressful emotions or experiencing overwhelm and exhibiting it, they were called “pagal” by family members. This was deeply hurtful to women because the word “pagal” for them have stigmatized and offensive connotations.

The goal of the third interaction was to talk about how women access information and have conversations around mental health. It was also to understand the role of an emotionally supportive community in their lives and their expectations from the same. Women shared that anonymity for them is important while talking about their socio-emotional concerns. It was difficult for them to open up about their life experiences especially about mood and personal suffering with neighbours and relatives in the fear of judgement. They shared that they instead benefitted from the non-judgemental space created in this circle especially since it allowed them to communicate with strangers who had no access to their real lives and social networks. We closed the circle by thanking each other for co-creating the safety in this space.