By Musaib Bilal
“He seemed fine.”
That’s what they said when a boy from our neighbourhood died by suicide last winter. He used to play cricket with us. He’d crack jokes on the bus to college. I saw him a week before he died, buying chips from the shop near the shrine. He looked normal. Just another young Kashmiri trying to make it through the day.
But he wasn’t fine. None of us are, really.
In Kashmir, men don’t cry. We’re not supposed to. We’re taught to keep our heads down, work hard, provide, protect, never complain.
From a young age, boys here are conditioned to stay tough, like we’re preparing for some invisible battle. Crying is for girls. Talking about feelings is shameful. So we push it down and hope it stays buried.
But it doesn’t. It turns into anger, into silence, into sleepless nights. Sometimes it turns into violence, sometimes into drinking or drug use. And sometimes it turns into suicide.
Men are three times more likely to die by suicide globally, and in India, the numbers are even starker.
According to the National Crime Records Bureau, over 1,18,000 men died by suicide in 2022, more than double the number of women.
In Jammu and Kashmir, most mental health reporting focuses on conflict and PTSD, but barely anyone talks about men quietly breaking down behind closed doors.
When I was younger, I didn’t even know I was struggling. I had trouble sleeping. I overthought everything. I isolated myself but blamed others. I thought I was just weak. Or strange. I didn’t have the words for it: depression, anxiety, trauma. I only had feelings I wasn’t allowed to show.
Things got worse when I started college in Srinagar. I felt like I was walking through life with a mask on. I performed well academically, smiled when I had to, but inside I was sinking. I tried opening up once to a friend. I told him I didn’t feel like myself anymore. He just stared at me and said, “You’ll be fine. Everyone feels low sometimes.”
It wasn’t his fault. Men here don’t know how to listen, because we were never taught how.
In Kashmir, male friendships revolve around gossip, politics, cricket, tea. But rarely do we talk about what’s happening inside us. We tease each other, but we don’t tell each other the truth.
So many men I know are carrying pain they’ve never named. Fathers, brothers, classmates. Some lost loved ones to violence. Some carry the pressure of joblessness and responsibility. Some feel the suffocation of not being able to dream freely.
I started going to therapy two years ago. I had to travel far to find someone who wouldn’t dismiss me. Even now, there’s stigma. Most Kashmiri men I know would never admit they’re in therapy. It’s seen as an embarrassment, as if getting help is proof that you’ve failed at being a man.
But therapy saved me. Not because it gave me magical answers, but because it gave me permission to speak. I began to understand that I wasn’t broken. I was just human caught in captive conditions.
There’s no shame in being tired. Or overwhelmed. Or scared. But I had to unlearn years of silence to accept that.
I began testing it in my friendships. I told a classmate that I liked how he handled pressure during exams. I asked another how he was coping with his father’s illness. I shared my own struggles, slowly, without expecting anything back. And something shifted.
Men who’d never said a serious thing in their lives began opening up. Slowly. Carefully. But they did.
I realised the hunger for honesty is there. It just needs a safe place to breathe.
Loneliness is growing among men in Kashmir. A survey conducted by IMHANS Srinagar in 2021 found that nearly 70% of men under 30 reported feeling “emotionally isolated” despite living in joint families or having friend circles. On the outside, we’re surrounded. But on the inside, many of us feel deeply alone.
This loneliness doesn’t just affect individuals, it spills into relationships, parenting, even politics.
Emotionally distant men raise sons who carry the same silence. Marriages collapse not from a lack of love, but from a lack of communication. And we end up with communities that don’t know how to grieve together, how to celebrate without armour.
We need change. And we need it now.
That change won’t come from governments alone. It has to come from within our homes, our schools, our colleges. We need to teach boys that softness is not shameful. That you can be strong and still need a hug. That there’s courage in admitting you’re hurting.
We need more spaces where men can talk without being mocked. Where a father can tell his son that it’s okay to cry. Where a brother can say he feels lost without being laughed at. Where a man can walk into a therapist’s office without fearing the whispers of his mohalla.
Some of this change is already happening. I see more young men sharing mental health posts on social media. I see poetry about grief written by boys who were once too shy to say hello. There are small mental health circles forming in Srinagar and Anantnag. There are therapists offering free sessions. But we’re only scratching the surface.
For every man who speaks, there are ten who stay silent.
And if you’re one of them, I want to tell you this: you don’t need to carry it alone. You’re not less of a man because you feel. You’re not weak because you need help. You are worthy of being heard, of being held, of being healed.
In Kashmir, we are taught to survive. But surviving isn’t enough. We deserve to live, too, with joy, with softness, with tears that don’t have to be hidden.
- Musaib Bilal is a student at Amar Singh College and a mental health advocate. He can be reached at [email protected].
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