Storytelling by adolescent fellows

“Tum Mind Read Kar Sakte Ho?” – Life Of A Psychology Student In India

“The mind is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be understood.”

“The quality of life is determined by its activities.” – And our activities are shaped by our thoughts, emotions, and behaviour, which is exactly what psychology tries to understand.

As a psychology student in India, the sentence I hear the most is –

“Psychologist matlab pagalon ka doctor.”

And every time I hear this, I don’t feel angry… I feel sad, because as a psychology student in India, I see every day how little we still understand the human mind.

Sometimes, the real problem is not mental illness; the real problem is that in India, we still don’t understand what mental health actually means.

Today, conversations about mental health in India are finally opening up, which makes efforts like strengthening mental health services and projects like NIMHANS 2.0 feel very relevant for our generation. Anxiety, stress, depression – these things are not new. They have always existed in our society.

The only difference is that today people are finally finding the courage to talk about them. Earlier, if a child behaved differently, people in India would say “bahar ki hawa lag gayi hai” instead of understanding that it could be a psychological concern. Even now, when someone speaks honestly about their mental health, they often hear, “yeh sab humare time mein nahi hota tha” – as if pain only became real in this generation.

Because of this thinking in our society, psychologists in India are still called “pagalon ka doctor”. But in reality, psychologists don’t treat madness, they help people understand emotions, behaviour, stress, trauma, and the human mind – something every person deals with, whether they accept it or not. In India, we go to doctors for the body without hesitation, but when the mind feels tired, confused, or broken, suddenly, people feel ashamed to ask for help. Struggling mentally does not mean something is wrong with you. It simply means you are human.

As a psychology student in India, I find this personal. When I tell people what I study, many of them laugh and say,

“achha, toh tum pagalon ka ilaaj karogi?”

They say it casually, but it shows the reality of our society. Also, I’m often asked, “Can you read my mind”? It shows that people don’t have knowledge about this subject.

Studying psychology in India has taught me that every person is fighting something inside that the world cannot see.

Understanding emotions is not madness.

Talking about mental health is not a weakness.

And asking for help is not shame – it is courage.

Gen-Z in India understands this better. Studying psychology, talking about therapy, or asking for help is not weakness, it is ZAROORAT. Along with better hospitals, trauma centres, and medical facilities in India, mental health awareness and samvedana are equally important. Because real change in our country will not come only from buildings and machines, it will come when people start listening without judging, understanding without laughing, and helping without labelling.

Sometimes I feel psychology should be a part of education from the very beginning, because we teach children how to solve equations, but we don’t teach them how to handle stress, emotions, failure, or pain. Also psychologists will no longer be seen as “pagalon ka doctor”.

Sometimes I feel that being a psychology student in India is not just about studying a subject; it is about breaking a stereotype. Every time someone jokes about mental health, every time someone says “log kya kahenge”, every time someone hides their pain instead of talking about it – it reminds me why psychology is needed in our society. Maybe we cannot change everything in one day, but even understanding one person without judging is a step towards change.

And if our generation in India learns to listen with empathy instead of laughing in ignorance, then the future of mental health in India will be very different.

In India, choosing psychology sometimes feels like choosing a path that people don’t understand.

But maybe our generation in India is the one that will change this.

Maybe we are the generation that will stop calling psychologists “pagalon ka doctor”

and start understanding that psychologists are for everyone –

for the stressed, for the confused, for the hurt,

and sometimes for the people who stayed strong for too long.

“Maybe our society will truly change the day we stop asking ‘log kya kahenge’ and start asking ‘tum kaisa feel kar rahe ho?’

Because psychology teaches us that understanding someone’s emotions is the first step towards humanity.”

-Neeva Hardikar.

Featured image from Canva’as royalty-free image gallery, for representational purposes only.