Alia Bhatt and Mahesh Bhatt
Alia Bhatt’s father and filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt is currently gearing up for the release of his film The Dark Side of Life: Mumbai City. Ahead of his film release, the filmmaker spoke at length about depression, growing suicide incidents in our country and on similar sensitive issues.
He said that that people in our country are lacking awareness about mental health issues. Talking about it in detail, Bhatt added, “It’s a form of mental illness and it can be treated. When you suffer with diabetes then, you have to take insulin shots. Similarly, when you are prone towards depression then you need to consult a doctor who can treat you through medication but, I think in our country, we are lacking in generating awareness about mental illness. Almost in every household people are suffering from depression.”
Bhatt further talking about these issues revealed that his elder daughter Shaheen also suffered from clinical depression. He said, ‘’My daughter Shaheen, Alia’s elder sister, she, at the age of 16 discovered finally that she is suffering from clinical depression. In October, she is launching her own memoir in which she has talked about the kind of struggle she has gone through in that phase.”
He added, “She also came to a point of attempting a suicide at the age of 12-13 so this is the truth of my own house. Jiah Khan once came to us asking for work but that time somehow, we were not able to work with her, but later when she committed suicide and we visited her house it felt really bad.”
