Column | Window Seat

Window Seat | Mrinal Chatterjee

Depression

Blue Whale challenge has become a worldwide menace. Though the main perpetrators of the sinister game has been arrested in Russia and the website blocked, it is still continuing in many countries in different forms including India. Everyday media have reports of youngsters inflicting grave harm to himself/herself, as part of the game.

Psychologists site two reasons for the youngster’s attraction to this kind of dangerous and potentially harmful activities. One: a sense of macabre joy of meeting a dangerous challenge. They think they will be heroes, if they do it. Two: youngsters do it out of depression and loneliness. They bear this self-inflicting pain as a kind of macabre satisfaction, a kind of weird response of being alone.

Many of the youngsters who are drawn into this kind of game suffer from some kind of mental health problems. It is easy to detect physical problems. But it is very difficult to even detect mental problem like depression, forget about treating it medically. After all if you are just feeling sad, you need to suck it up and move on, right? That is the standard piece of advice everyone offers.

It could be seriously wrong. Depression could be a serious health issue that can not only impair a person’s ability to function, it might lead the person to take several wrong and potentially dangerous steps.

Therefore parents must take care of their children. Look for signs of depression. Spend more quality time with your children.

Internet Blocking Chair

Today we spend more and more time looking at screens of our smartphones. We pull out our smartphones unconsciously whenever we have a free moment, which prevents us from focusing on one thing, and simply from relaxing. Studies show that an average user unlocks his phone 110 times per day. How we wish to get a respite from the clutches of our innocuous like smart phones. But it is like a strong addiction. You are drawn towards it.

Now here is a solution. A designer has made what he calls 'an offline chair' to change this by using special pocket that blocks off mobile and WI-FI signals, which allows the user to get a moment of quietness without constantly hearing the sound of a ringing phone.

I am going to get one, as soon as it is available in the local market.

Biopic

Several biopics are being made in Bollywood. Why can't somebody make one on Field Marshal Manekshaw? Baquir Shameem, an ex-army officer and writer raised this question at the Kalinga Literature Festival in Bhubaneswar recently.

I too feel, it is time somebody make a biopic on the great man and the way he won 1971 war.

Tailpiece1: Smallest story about demonetisation

To hunt crocodiles, the water was drained from the pond. No crocodiles were found because they can live on land too. But all the small fish died.

Tailpiece1: Still offline

Sabkuchh online ho gaya hai.

Lekin thappad abhi vi ja ke marna padta hai.

(Everything has moved online. But you have to still physically go to slap somebody.)

(Courtesy: Social Media Post)