We are facing a quiet, profound emergency. The recent tragedies involving students at IIT Bombay and IIT Delhi have shaken all of us. Behind every such incident is a mirror held up to our educational ecosystem. peer support, committees of inquiry – must be taken up urgently and compassionately, we must also have the courage to look at long-term solutions While immediate measures – counseling helplines.
This is not a philosophy for retirement; it is a toolkit for a 19-year-old facing his first major failure away from home. The current response of most institutions, understandably under pressure, is to focus on decreasing stress. We make teaching simpler, exams more predictable, assignments less demanding, evaluation more lenient. Faculty feel caught between upholding academic integrity and preventing a human tragedy. When the system reaches a point where to save a young life we are even forced to consider whether cheating should be overlooked, we must recognize that we are treating symptoms, not the cause. Stress will never disappear. Life will never be free of failure, comparison, rejection and loneliness. The question is not only how to reduce stress, but how to make the mind stronger, more centered, more capable of negotiating stress with control and equanimity. Our civilisation understood, long before modern psychology, that the mind is not a fixed entity but something that can be trained. The Bhagavad Gita does not promise Arjuna a battlefield without arrows. It offers him a state of sthitaprajnata – steady wisdom amid turbulence – even while he is in the middle of the battlefield. Patanjali defines yoga not as physical exercise but as chitta vritti nirodha – the ability to still the whirlpools of the mind through abhyasa and vairagya, sustained practice and non-attachment to outcome.
For almost 50 years, SPIC MACAY has been experimenting in this domain. My concrete suggestion is this: introduce a compulsory, experiential course in every school and higher education institution, designed as 0-0-6 credits – zero lectures, zero tutorials, six hours of practical. A student can take this 0-0-6 course for one year either in classical music, or classical dance or a traditional craft form or yoga of the type already described.
Let us have the courage to make our youth sit still, listen deeply, work with their hands, serve and breathe. (Professor Emeritus, IIT; Delhi, Founder, SPIC MACAY) You Can Also Check: Gold Rate in Mumbai | Silver Rate in Mumbai | Bank Holidays in Mumbai | Public Holidays in Mumbai | Mumbai AQI | Weather in Mumbai | Petrol Price in Mumbai | Diesel Price in Mumbai | CNG Price in Mumbai | LPG Price in Mumbai Stay updated with the latest Mumbai news. We have worked with schools and colleges, bringing profound aspects of our heritage – classical music and dance, yoga, meditation, classical cinema, folk arts and crafts – into their systems – not as entertainment, but as a means of inner transformation. What we have seen repeatedly is that when a student sits for one hour in deep listening to a Dhrupad alap, or learns to sit still with his breath, or spends a week with a master potter, something shifts. The restless mind begins to experience concentration, patience and a joy that is not dependent on external validation. Not examinable in the conventional sense, no grades to compete for, but mandatory for completion of degree, like laboratory work. Gurus, not mere teachers, have to be carefully chosen. This distinction is crucial. A teacher imparts information; a Guru embodies a way of being. When a student sees a master who has spent many years of his life polishing a single raga, he understands that worth is built over time, that failure is part of sadhana. In Yoga, it would not be gymnastic asanas but breath-led, slow practices that teach a student to observe anxiety without being consumed by it. In classical music or dance, learning to hold a single swara teaches the value of riyaz. In traditional crafts, working with hands restores the connection between head, heart and hand. But for any of this to work, reduction of cellphone usage is very important. The constant scroll is an external vritti that never allows the internal vrittis to settle. Despair often comes from a feeling of being alone, a feeling of being a failure, and a feeling that this state will never change. Such practices address all three. They create community without competition, they teach that practice matters more than perfection, and they give a lived experience of impermanence. This is not a substitute for professional psychological help. Every campus must have robust, confidential, stigma-free counseling support. But counseling after breakdown is like a hospital; we also need daily exercise for mental fitness. The time has come to raise the inner bar. Download the TOI App.