Mental health: Need ‘ATCs' to ‘hear' their ‘Mayday calls'

New Indian Express

18 hours ago

'Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!' Captain Sumeet Sabharwal, pilot of the ill-fated AI-171 Boeing 787 Dreamliner on the Ahmedabad-London Gatwick flight route, called out to the Air Traffic Control (ATC) seconds after taking off at 1.39 pm on June 12 from Ahmadabad's Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport. The Mayday call informed a helpless ATC that the aircraft was not achieving the thrust to sustain the take-off, and that they were 'falling'. Seconds later, the aircraft crashed into a medical college hostel, turning into a fireball, killing 241 of the 242 individuals on board and several others on the ground, taking the toll to 270.
Each air tragedy shocks people, a sudden and unexpected halt on hopes, dreams and aspirations of not only those whose lives are consumed, but also their grieving near and dear ones. Relationships turn into mere memories of once-shared lives. It leaves a bitter after-taste of experiencing the lives of those known so closely being suddenly nipped in the bud, of lifelines mercilessly severed. A closure without explanations or justifications. This is what makes air tragedies more shocking – that one ill-fated incident can wipe out so many lives in one cruel swipe.
Such tragedies evoke a lot of emotions, anger and frustration. However, there is another tragedy which is in the making, but fails to attract attention. There are 'Mayday calls', but not many hear them. They gradually move through a living disaster as they suffer in silence – which, if continued to be ignored, can lead them to live extremely disturbed and quality-affected lives, and worse, even consider extreme steps.
This 'tragedy in the making' is mental illness, to which it is most difficult to put a number while estimating how widely it has spread.
Hyper-competition is now embedded and accepted as 'part of life'. In an increasingly complicated world, in which the double-edged sword of 'social media' casts its negative impacts on sensitive minds, it works like a well-oiled machine to afflict a growing number of people with mental illness. The Covid-19 pandemic inflicted a cruel blow, bringing with it social isolation, job loss, and major disruption to healthcare and education, that made matters worse across age-groups.