Sadness shouldn’t be perceived as a sign of weakness, says Ananya
Apart from being passionate about music, singer Ananya Birla also feels deeply about a lot of societal issues. And with conversations surrounding mental health illnesses in India taking centre stage now, she feels that although the mental health care system in the country has come a long way, there is a lot more work yet to be done. “We have one of the highest rates of depression and suicide in the world, especially among young people. Because of the stigma that is engrained in our society about mental illness, people are terrified to reach out for help. Even if they overcome that, treatment is often too expensive, or just too difficult to get. There are less than two psychiatrists per 1,00,000 people in the country and they are seeing hundreds of patients every single day. One in five people are currently struggling with their mental health in India — a number that is only going to increase amid the pandemic, which has seen unprecedented joblessness and isolation. We need to drastically improve the mental health system in this country and make sure more money is being set aside for this cause,” says Birla.
The singer says that even though people would like their social media profiles to tell a happy story all the time, it is not possible to be always ecstatic. Hence, showing one’s “sadness should not be perceived as a sign of weakness”, she believes. “While I’m still trying to come to terms with this myself, I know that it’s part of life. We all need to remember that it is okay to not be okay sometimes. There is no shame and it doesn’t reflect on your value as a person,” says the 26year-old singer.
Amid the lockdown, Birla has managed to complete her new song, Let There Be Love, which she recorded in her home studio. “I got to learn a lot about the production side of things because all of that was done remotely. Definitely, there were some challenges, but it was all worth it,” she says adding, “It is a really important song for me as it is my first release of the year. All my songs are about connecting with people, which has been so hard over the past few months. I want to use this song to remind people that beautiful things can blossom out of dark moments, and that whatever we are going through, we need to make sure that we make love and people a priority,” signs off Birla. to the pandemic, the siblings won’t be together on Raksha Bandhan. “Celebrating such occasion makes you happy, brings back memories, but when you grow up, life takes you in different direction. What matters the most, is being there for each other,” says Kubbra. The feeling is mutual, as Danish puts it, “We’re with each other in spirits...the occasion doesn’t matter.”
Kubbra also shares an instance from five years ago, which changed course of their relationship. “I knew that he’ll call me when he needs and I’d do the same. And then one day, Dan actually told me, ‘You don’t do enough for me’. Sometimes you need to hear that to understand how you’ve behaved,” she says, adding that since then she decided to do something every day. “Staying apart, we might not be able to meet up much but we do talk a lot about everything, including the best thing that happened to us, to what broke us.”she shares.