Mental health debate moves to Kolkata cafes as adda sessions offer a safe space

KOLKATA: For people struggling with depression and anxiety, informal public spaces, like cafes, that facilitate adda sessions, are increasingly being viewed as a respite from mental health woes.
In 2017, corporate trainer and inspirational speaker Souvik Biswas set up a social mental wellness initiative called Tea Talkers, a platform on which people of different ages with various mental health concerns meet at cafes across the city to discuss their problems informally.“Our objective is to make mental well-being more prevalent among people and help them shield themselves better against debilitating bouts of self-doubt. Anybody can join our sessions, however, not just those with mental health issues,” said Biswas.
Talking about the relevance of cafes as the appropriate setting, Biswas said, “I had observed that people tend to spend several hours at cafes talking about personal problems with friends without being able to find proper solutions. At the same time, due to the stigma in our society of consulting mental health professionals, many of these issues are never addressed. The upbeat casual ambience of cafes help facilitate these kind of informal sessions where strangers can feel comfortable exchanging ideas of motivation and inspiration.”
“While depression is ultimately an illness and, hence, requires a formal diagnosis, I believe these kinds of community outreach programmes must be explored as alternative methods to tackle mental health issues. After all, mental health is a culturally relative term, which means different things to different people. There are numerous ways to address the issues, deviating from the Western model of individual therapy sessions. Since adda is an important facet of Kolkata culture, adda hubs like cafes can be meaningful places to explore means of addressing mental health challenges,” said sociology research scholar Rahul Ganguly.
Talking about how cafes provide a feeling of community among different age groups, Shilpa Chakraborty, co-owner of Tribe cafe, said, “The cafe hosts several workshops and sessions on wellness and mental health. I have found that during these sessions, groups of strangers often form friendships that become a source of support to one another. People even strike up friendship with waiters. It is nice that people from different backgrounds can form their own tribes out of mutual interest.”
English literature scholar Ipshita Chakraborty said that while Western cultures often focus on individualistic solutions for mental health problems, Asian and African cultures traditionally focus more on community-based responses, which can be equally effective. “Various adda spaces in Kolkata, such as hair salons and roadside tea shops, have acted as spaces for people to have discussions about their personal problems that give them a sense of well-being and relief. Meanwhile, in some African cultures, symptoms of depression are treated with community-wide intervention in the form of exorcisms. Just because these solutions are not rooted in Western models, it does not make them necessarily less effective.”