Mental Illness, Trauma and Bollywood: Redefining the Role of Celluloid

Abstract

The concept of mental illness and trauma appear to be tenebrous and stigmatized in India. People suffering from such illnesses are often “tagged as ‘lunatics,’ ‘crazy’, ‘possessed’ and many more by society. This leads to a vicious cycle of shame, suffering and isolation of the patients” (Hussain, 2021, p. 1). The dearth of awareness and sensitivity about the issue confound the situation for the victims inducing in them a sense of guilt and trauma. There is an urgency to revamp our understanding and representation of mental issues along with the physical problems or diseases. Bollywood, i.e., the Indian Hindi film industry, serving as a source of entertainment and mass education, has come forward to redefine its role by destigmatizing the mental illness and trauma by providing screen space to mould public perception and reception of these issues. The taboo and rather unheeded subject which has been overlooked and silenced since long is found to be represented in the select Bollywood films, such as, Kartik Calling Kartik (2010), Dear Zindagi (2016), Tamasha (2015), Anjana Anjanni (2010) and Judgemental Hai Kya (2019). This paper tends to analyse these films through the lens of trauma theory to examine how recurrent and intrusive recollections, flashbacks, night mares, sleep deprivation and dissociated and hyper-aroused state of the protagonists impair their mental health leading to their trauma. Translating “nervous shock” and “listening to the wounds of the other” (Luckhurst, 2018, p. 506) will be stressed in this paper. Besides, how these films contribute to the understanding of “post-traumatic growth,” “a positive psychological change that may occur in an individual after having processed and coped with trauma,” (Bryngeirsdottir & Halldorsdottir, 2021, p. 2) will be explored.