Zindaginama reveals its intention in its title. The exploration of mental health issues is positive rather than negative, uplifting when it could have been downbeat.
The Sony LIV show aims to bust myths about conditions that are more common than we realise. Zindaginama has been created by Neerja Birla, with clinical advice from the MPower mental health care centre. Several writers and directors have put their minds to portraying an array of ailments sensitively as well as engagingly.
The six episodes tackle schizophrenia, obsessive-compulsive disorder, gender dysphoria, anorexia, gaming addiction and post-traumatic stress disorder. Each problem gets its own case study, with varying results.
The most compelling episode is the one on schizophrenia. Shreyas Talpade plays Mukul, whose paranoia has cost him his job and peace of mind. His wife Malti (Anjali Patil) keeps the house running but has to attend to Mukul’s hallucinations ever so often.
Written by Sukriti Tyagi, Ishaan Rai, Rahul Hota and directed by Tyagi, this episode gives the most clear-eyed sense of what it means to live with a debilitating condition. The couple’s straitened economic circumstances make it clear that schizophrenia can happen to anybody. Apart from a solid performance by Talpade, Patil is moving as the supportive spouse who herself needs comfort from time to time.
The emphasis on timely diagnosis is most strongly felt in the chapter on post-traumatic disorder. Written by Venkatesh AV and directed by Aditya Sarpotdar, this episode stars an excellent Shweta Basu Prasad alongside Priya Bapat, Swaroopa Ghosh, Alka Amin and Dayashankar Pandey.
Namrata (Basu Prasad) is terrified of sexual contact, while Vaidehi (Bapat) is emotionally abused for failing to give birth to a boy. Despite avoidable melodramatic flourishes, the story points to the manner in which trauma affects women in different ways and needs intensive counselling if it is to be healed.
The episode on gender dysphoria, starring Sumeet Vyas and Mohammad Samad, is a tender portrayal of a boy from a village who is trapped in a female body. Prajakta Koli, Yashaswini Dayama and Lilette Dubey star in the chapter on anorexia.
In the episode on gaming addiction, Tanmay Dhanania plays the addict, while Shruti Seth is his therapist. The exploration of obsessive-compulsive disorder is noteworthy chiefly for Shivani Raghuvanshi’s depiction of a woman beset by anxieties.
Sincerely written, directed and performed, the show fulfils its goal of providing education through entertainment. Although the duration of the chapters is too short to summarise the complexity of the illnesses, no claim is made for a permanent solution. Instead, Zindaginama suggests that identifying the problem and reposing faith in mental health professionals is the way to go. It’s simplistic, but it’s a start.
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