The taboo surrounding mental health problems and the unwillingness of most colleges to take up the cost of professional counselling make India’s youth highly vulnerable.On an April evening in a campus town, a group of college students across various disciplines – sciences and humanities – stepped away from their studies to meet under the stars and share stories through art and readings. All these narratives were on mental health struggles. The tone was of hope, of questioning and seeking help, of building a community. It just may be a significant moment in the history of higher education in this country. As part of India’s inelegant scramble to match top-class world universities, what has been forgotten is that one of the distinguishing features of those universities is the attention they have paid to issues of student well-being, especially mental health. Anyone who has studied abroad can feel the palpable difference in college healthcare. One may add to this the obvious universal point that a student going for an undergraduate programme experiences a world where she is suddenly separated from parental world views, especially in residential situations. When this happens, there is of course euphoria, but also despair. The morality of the parents may not always speak to the urgencies and pressures of today.

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