Showing posts with label help. Show all posts
Showing posts with label help. Show all posts
Monday 20 June 2022
Sunday 24 April 2022
Wednesday 30 September 2020
While India revels in the IPL, do we care about the mental health of cricketers?
Varun Shetty in Cricinfo
For 15 minutes, in the frigid press-conference room of the Holkar Stadium in Indore last November, Virat Kohli fielded questions mostly about the pink-ball Test in Kolkata nine days later. That was until he got one about Glenn Maxwell's decision to take a break from cricket to tend to his mental health.
"I'm absolutely for it," Kohli said. "I've gone through a phase in my career where I felt like it was the end of the world. In England 2014, I didn't know what to do, what to say to anyone, and how to speak and how to communicate. And to be honest, I couldn't have said I'm not feeling great mentally and I need to get away from the game. Because you never know how that's taken."
Kohli was 25 in 2014, an international player for six years, and long past the stage of just being an exciting prospect; he was a generational talent being groomed for leadership, and whose brandification had already transitioned him into the elite tier of Indian cricket. With no one to talk to, ten innings without a fifty felt like the end of the world.
The press conference wasn't a setting in which Kohli could have elaborated further on his thoughts about that tour. But whether his malaise was existential, performance-related, or even a symptom of mental illness, it provides a sombre insight into the contrast between cricket's profile in India and the negligible support system for its players.
Playing cricket in India is different to elsewhere in the world, not least because of a population approaching 1.4 billion. The margins for error are small, and nowhere else are the rewards of making it so lucrative, all of which thrusts the player into an unhealthy relationship with a demanding public. And though the phenomenon of stoning players' houses may have disappeared, it might be only because coordinated bullying on social media is easier to sustain.
Not that it should take such a reality to build a support system, as other cricketing nations have shown. Dr Samir Parikh, a psychiatrist and director of Fortis' National Mental Health Program, said one in four people suffer from mental health issues.
"If you have a hundred players that play for, let's say, a year, it is not possible that at least one or two will not have depression," he told the Cricket Monthly. "It's just statistically not possible. So how do you identify and take care of it? Because you might misread the lows, misread the reaction, as a part of the career, not as a medical problem."
Robin Uthappa has spoken recently about being clinically depressed around the late 2000s Jasjeet Plaha / © Hindustan Times/Getty Images
It stands to reason that self-reporting is the most reliable way to start tackling any such problems.
"If you think that a player is important enough, for the team or for Indian cricket to go forward, I think they should be looked after," Kohli said as part of his response to the Maxwell question. "When you get to the international stage, every player needs that communication, that ability to just speak out."
But if Kohli couldn't, then who can?
Amonth after Kohli's press conference, Madhya Pradesh batsman Aryaman Birla, 22 at the time, announced an indefinite break from the game as he had been coping with "severe anxiety related to the sport for a while now".
It was a rare public statement of the kind by a cricketer in India, perhaps the first. More cricketers have spoken of their experiences since. Recently, in separate interviews, Robin Uthappa said he had been clinically depressed and suicidal between 2009 and 2011 - not long after becoming a T20 World Cup winner. It had been especially difficult to manage when there was no cricket.
"Cricket kept my mind off of these thoughts but it became really difficult on non-match days and during the off season," Uthappa said on a wellness webinar hosted by the Royals. "On days I would just be sitting there and would think to myself on the count of three, I'm going to run and jump off of the balcony. But something kind of just held me back."
Uthappa's situation gives us a glimpse into how franchise cricket has added a new dimension to cricketers' lives. As a tournament that seems, paradoxically, both accessible and difficult to break into - 971 players registered for the last auction - the IPL has a certain amount of influence over players' destinies.
Psychiatrist Samir Parikh: "If I was working with a young sportsperson who is doing well, I would put all my might into grounding them into focusing on performance, shutting the noise of adulation, not looking at your bank balance, and focusing on the next ball" Ryan Pierse / © Getty Images
A few weeks ago, Chennai Super Kings owner N Srinivasan was quoted as saying that Suresh Raina, second only to MS Dhoni in the CSK pantheon, would "certainly realise what he is missing and certainly all the money he is going to lose" by opting out of the IPL. There's an immediate parallel in football, where Lionel Messi, synonymous with Barcelona FC, had to consider suing the club he has been at since he was 13 when he wanted to leave, and was all but coerced into staying on for another year. The commodification of players is a modern challenge - and may affect those who are biochemically predisposed to mental conditions.
For Uthappa, a last-minute trade to his home-town franchise, the Royal Challengers Bangalore, was unsettling enough to exacerbate an underlying illness.
"In 2008 I played for Mumbai Indians and I was just transferred to the RCB," Uthappa told the Quint. "I was very conflicted because the trade happened very close to the tournament. I think three-four weeks before. Suddenly, you're preparing the whole year to play for one team and you're thrown into a trade situation when you have to go to another team. Even though I was coming home [Bengaluru], I was very conflicted. And I think that was the hay that broke the camel's back, so to speak, for me. I realised something was not right. I was constantly depressed, I was not okay."
Uthappa reached out to a counsellor and was diagnosed. He then had to stick to a counselling routine, and was on medication as he navigated his illness, with his family as support system.
In a 2013 thesis on suicides in cricket at the University of Chester, Shaun McNee scraped international cricketers' autobiographies for quotes on the emotional toll of the cricketing life. In it are excerpts from players like Herschelle Gibbs, Marcus Trescothick and Andrew Flintoff on the strains of touring, of developing "four-wall fever" in hotel rooms, of returning home and not being recognised by their children. Professional cricket gets lonely.
Sheldon Jackson, Saurashtra's senior pro, was homesick at the start of the last Ranji Trophy season, as his team's first two fixtures were away. It had been a difficult year for the 33-year-old, one where he'd needed to be in "three-four places at the same time", apart from dealing with his frustration at not being called up to the India A squad. His mother had battled tuberculosis, and he was aching to be home with his wife, who was pregnant with their first child.
Sheldon Jackson didn't seek professional help for his mental-health troubles but managed to play through the phase Prashant Bhoot / © Sportzpics
"I was not sleeping well," Jackson told TCM. "Whatever was going on on the field, I was not enjoying it a bit. It was always like, jaldi khatam ho jaye, mujhe ghar jaana hai [I hope this ends early, I want to be home]. I tried to speak to certain people but instead of trying to understand from where you're coming, people always try to be the stronger person. Ki nahin yaar, aisa nahi hai [It's not a big deal], be strong, we are this, we are that. But actually at the end of the day we are just humans. We may be cricketers but we are humans first."
Jackson played through his discomfort, coping by keeping himself occupied and in the gym, while those at home reassured him that things were under control. He had another stellar season, breaching the 800-run mark once again as Saurashtra won the Ranji Trophy. During this time he only spoke to one of his team-mates, Chirag Jani, whom he has known a long time, and didn't seek professional help because, as he put it, "I hadn't gone into mental trauma or something".
Former India batsman Aakash Chopra, now a broadcaster, says things were much the same when he was an active cricketer: there was "no way" you could tell a captain or coach if you were feeling down, because you would be benched. "By the time you reach the top level, you're already hardwired to not acknowledge or admit if you're having certain issues," Chopra told TCM.
He makes an important distinction between the challenge of having to hold on to a spot in the team, and having to battle mental-health issues. The former is part of the game, wherever it is played, and something players train to manage as they step up through the ranks. The average cricketer already knows that the odds of success are stacked against them. A bad day at a trial or a bad decision from an umpire can end careers, and there are no second chances. Chopra was hearing he was going to be dropped even as he prepared to make his debut for Delhi.
Chopra says he first began to feel lonely and disconnected from the game after he was dropped from the Indian team. As he looked to navigate that period, he was too conscious to be open about it; and that included self-judgement about whether being a recent Indian player had changed how he behaves. He contemplated leaving cricket, before trying counselling and an Art of Living course to ground himself.
"For those who start doing well, the sheer expectation also has a huge impact," says Parikh. "Anything which happens in the public domain brings a lot more expectation, which exaggerates everything about the failure. So that makes it even more difficult, especially when you are younger. And the same stress comes back when you're not young anymore. The moment you're established and become slightly more senior, you know there is someone knocking on the door."
Hotel rooms are mostly lonely places, and living out of a suitcase can take a mental toll Ryan Pierse / © Getty Images
"The nature of cricket is such that it tears at the nerves," cricket writer David Frith said to the Guardian in a 2001 article about suicides in English cricket. "Half-hearted cricketers are extremely rare. This game gets a grip on people such as only religious fanatics might recognise."
For an aspirational generation of Indian cricketers, growing up on broadcasts flavoured by machismo and one-upmanship, the pressure of expectation is bound to rise.
In the present circumstances there are fresh challenges. In the ongoing IPL, even as cricket-starved audiences tune in to watch on television, the players perform in empty stadiums and live in biosecure bubbles. "There are a number of other players who are very much in the same boat as Suresh Raina, and I just hope that the teams are aware of that and are catering for that," mental-conditioning coach Paddy Upton told ESPNcricinfo a fortnight before the tournament began. "There are coaches who are gonna be struggling, there are support staff who are gonna be struggling in that three-month bio-bubble."
The work before the team management, according to Upton, is "to understand who are the extroverts, the confidence players, the externally motivated players, those who are risk-averse, those who are fear-based, the pessimists. Those are the players we really need to nurture to bring them up to a place where they can be comfortable in their own lives, comfortable by themselves in their hotel rooms without that external validation and stimulation…"
IPL games and international matches are the most high-profile of India's cricket, but they are only a small proportion of it. In the 2019-20 season, India held 2036 domestic matches across men's and women's cricket and age groups. For that volume of cricket, and cricketers, the support system that currently exists barely qualifies as an afterthought.
In thinking about why the BCCI hasn't matched up with Australia and England on mental-well-being measures, one must consider the spectrum of opinions that Indian society holds on the topic. From a legal lens, attempting suicide was punishable under criminal law in India until 2017, when that provision of the penal code was restricted (but not removed altogether). A 2018 document floated in the Indian parliament said there are only 3827 psychiatrists in the country, against a requirement of 13,500.
A future archive of prime-time TV news since June 2020 will be filled with popular anchors trying to talk down any mention of mental illness in the case of Sushant Singh Rajput - the actor who played Dhoni in a biopic - who died by suicide. Some segments have gone as far as analysing his smiles in old footage to "prove" that he could not have been depressed; adding to that narrative, some celebrities with big followings have dismissed mental illnesses as a conspiracy or a hoax.
In the early '90s, when former India wicketkeeper Sadanand Viswanath was dealing with the death of his parents within a year of each other, the end of his Indian career, and a subsequent battle with alcoholism and depression - all in a short period of time - he considered seeing a psychiatrist. His friend, a doctor, intervened.
"I did seriously consider that option," Viswanath told TCM. "Until one fine day a friend of mine who is a doctor said, 'Vishy, even if there's nothing wrong with you, once you finish those sessions of counselling with a psychiatrist, you'll be bonkers. Better not see any psychiatrist.'"
Viswanath said he considers it one of the best pieces of advice he was given at the time.
"Ultimately your mental strength and your bouncing-back ability and your resilience, your perseverance, that gumption, that gut feel - it all depends on your self-respect, your belief system and not wanting to cut a sorry figure in society. Because you have played for the Indian team. That's the maryaad [conduct] one must have. When I walk up, people should say, 'Wow, here's a former Indian cricketer.' If you see me in a sorry state of affairs, what's that going to reflect on Indian cricket? Indian cricket becomes the loser. I don't want that to happen."
The likelihood of, say, depressive symptoms being categorised as "negative thinking" are strong even today. In the age of motivational coaches, genuine medical issues may inadvertently get overlooked.
"The mental-health component, which is the more biological component, by and large is very neglected, and that's why some of the recent [player] breaks have happened," Parikh reckons. "Those breaks could well have been a pure mental-health issue and not merely a burnout. We don't know from a distance."
The IPL, with its big-money auctions, has had a significant impact on players' prospects, and that has brought pressure in its wake Kalpak Pathak / © Hindustan Times/Getty Images
The Indian men's team has, from time to time, employed mental-conditioning coaches. The women's team, on the other hand, has been publicly - and unsuccessfully - asking for a sports psychologist since the end of the 2016 T20 World Cup. The absence of one has meant that the burden of dealing with issues as varied as anxiety, depression and eating disorders have fallen on the players themselves, alongside support staff hired for other roles.
As far as TCM could determine, the only formal initiative taken at board level has been the creation of a general player's handbook in 2017, based on the recommendation of the Mudgal committee, which was set up to look into various aspects of Indian cricket. The handbook - adapted for cricket by GoSports Foundation, who originally created it for athlete awareness around things like sponsorships and the media - contains a section on mental well-being in a 101 format; it informs players about the symptoms of mental illness and recommends steps on dealing with them, including advice to seek professional help. It is understood that copies of this handbook were published in English and Hindi, but several players - domestic and international - told TCM they had never heard of it.
In summary, the pattern that emerges is that players at various levels are either not being heard, or are wary of speaking about their troubles. In contrast, players and boards in England and Australia have been openly supportive of those who need breaks, even multiple breaks or permanent ones. In both countries, cricketers have reached out through the respective players' associations, which represent the welfare of past and current cricketers, and which have created enabling systems, such as anonymous helplines. In India, the players' association is exclusively for retired cricketers who have played a minimum of one international match or ten men's first-class matches or five women's first-class matches. And even then the association is too limited in its power for real help. It certainly didn't feature in the account of Praveen Kumar, who came close to shooting himself in 2019 as the silence of retirement closed in on him.
"I told myself, 'Kya hai yeh sab? Bas khatam karte hain,'" [What's all this? Let me just end it] Kumar told the Indian Express. He only stopped himself when his eyes fell upon a picture of his children, and was soon in therapy. The Express story tells of Kumar's agony after being dropped from the Indian team and missing out on the IPL - a life cooped up in his room, watching his own highlights reel.
A tendency to downplay and dismiss the prevalence of mental illness in India has been a byproduct of the media feeding frenzy in the wake of the suicide of the actor Sushant Singh Rajput Indranil Mukherjee / © AFP/Getty Images
It's not unheard of for former players to crave the highs of their fleeting time at the top. The dynamics of trying to become a top athlete involve such an obsessive relationship with the sport in the formative years that your identity is tied to it. With the advent of social media and multi-crore IPL contracts for teenagers, the risks are even higher, fears Parikh.
"If I was working with a young sportsperson who is suddenly doing well, I would put all my might into grounding this person into focusing on performance, shutting the noise of friends, shutting the noise of adulation, virtually not looking at your bank balance, and focusing on the next ball," he said. "If I'm not able to succeed in doing that, your failure rate would be higher. Look at those people who've had a great IPL, and who did not follow it up.
"Imagine a scenario where you know that endorsements will make a difference, where you know that social-media followership and your individual identity will also make a difference. How do you ensure that this component of your life is like an occupational need but not the core? You may get endorsements today, and one bad season and they're all done with."
There is work in progress on this front at the National Cricket Academy, where Rahul Dravid and his team have tried to roll out mental-health seminars for even those young players who aren't contracted or part of NCA camps, alongside those who represent India in age-group and developmental cricket.
Between that and Kohli's call for more openness, there is a start.
But for now, as the world's richest board ignores even the simplest of requests - a psychologist for its women's team, which has played two World Cup finals in three years - the creation of a comprehensive support system seems a distant dream.
For 15 minutes, in the frigid press-conference room of the Holkar Stadium in Indore last November, Virat Kohli fielded questions mostly about the pink-ball Test in Kolkata nine days later. That was until he got one about Glenn Maxwell's decision to take a break from cricket to tend to his mental health.
"I'm absolutely for it," Kohli said. "I've gone through a phase in my career where I felt like it was the end of the world. In England 2014, I didn't know what to do, what to say to anyone, and how to speak and how to communicate. And to be honest, I couldn't have said I'm not feeling great mentally and I need to get away from the game. Because you never know how that's taken."
Kohli was 25 in 2014, an international player for six years, and long past the stage of just being an exciting prospect; he was a generational talent being groomed for leadership, and whose brandification had already transitioned him into the elite tier of Indian cricket. With no one to talk to, ten innings without a fifty felt like the end of the world.
The press conference wasn't a setting in which Kohli could have elaborated further on his thoughts about that tour. But whether his malaise was existential, performance-related, or even a symptom of mental illness, it provides a sombre insight into the contrast between cricket's profile in India and the negligible support system for its players.
Playing cricket in India is different to elsewhere in the world, not least because of a population approaching 1.4 billion. The margins for error are small, and nowhere else are the rewards of making it so lucrative, all of which thrusts the player into an unhealthy relationship with a demanding public. And though the phenomenon of stoning players' houses may have disappeared, it might be only because coordinated bullying on social media is easier to sustain.
Not that it should take such a reality to build a support system, as other cricketing nations have shown. Dr Samir Parikh, a psychiatrist and director of Fortis' National Mental Health Program, said one in four people suffer from mental health issues.
"If you have a hundred players that play for, let's say, a year, it is not possible that at least one or two will not have depression," he told the Cricket Monthly. "It's just statistically not possible. So how do you identify and take care of it? Because you might misread the lows, misread the reaction, as a part of the career, not as a medical problem."
Robin Uthappa has spoken recently about being clinically depressed around the late 2000s Jasjeet Plaha / © Hindustan Times/Getty Images
It stands to reason that self-reporting is the most reliable way to start tackling any such problems.
"If you think that a player is important enough, for the team or for Indian cricket to go forward, I think they should be looked after," Kohli said as part of his response to the Maxwell question. "When you get to the international stage, every player needs that communication, that ability to just speak out."
But if Kohli couldn't, then who can?
Amonth after Kohli's press conference, Madhya Pradesh batsman Aryaman Birla, 22 at the time, announced an indefinite break from the game as he had been coping with "severe anxiety related to the sport for a while now".
It was a rare public statement of the kind by a cricketer in India, perhaps the first. More cricketers have spoken of their experiences since. Recently, in separate interviews, Robin Uthappa said he had been clinically depressed and suicidal between 2009 and 2011 - not long after becoming a T20 World Cup winner. It had been especially difficult to manage when there was no cricket.
"Cricket kept my mind off of these thoughts but it became really difficult on non-match days and during the off season," Uthappa said on a wellness webinar hosted by the Royals. "On days I would just be sitting there and would think to myself on the count of three, I'm going to run and jump off of the balcony. But something kind of just held me back."
Uthappa's situation gives us a glimpse into how franchise cricket has added a new dimension to cricketers' lives. As a tournament that seems, paradoxically, both accessible and difficult to break into - 971 players registered for the last auction - the IPL has a certain amount of influence over players' destinies.
Psychiatrist Samir Parikh: "If I was working with a young sportsperson who is doing well, I would put all my might into grounding them into focusing on performance, shutting the noise of adulation, not looking at your bank balance, and focusing on the next ball" Ryan Pierse / © Getty Images
A few weeks ago, Chennai Super Kings owner N Srinivasan was quoted as saying that Suresh Raina, second only to MS Dhoni in the CSK pantheon, would "certainly realise what he is missing and certainly all the money he is going to lose" by opting out of the IPL. There's an immediate parallel in football, where Lionel Messi, synonymous with Barcelona FC, had to consider suing the club he has been at since he was 13 when he wanted to leave, and was all but coerced into staying on for another year. The commodification of players is a modern challenge - and may affect those who are biochemically predisposed to mental conditions.
For Uthappa, a last-minute trade to his home-town franchise, the Royal Challengers Bangalore, was unsettling enough to exacerbate an underlying illness.
"In 2008 I played for Mumbai Indians and I was just transferred to the RCB," Uthappa told the Quint. "I was very conflicted because the trade happened very close to the tournament. I think three-four weeks before. Suddenly, you're preparing the whole year to play for one team and you're thrown into a trade situation when you have to go to another team. Even though I was coming home [Bengaluru], I was very conflicted. And I think that was the hay that broke the camel's back, so to speak, for me. I realised something was not right. I was constantly depressed, I was not okay."
Uthappa reached out to a counsellor and was diagnosed. He then had to stick to a counselling routine, and was on medication as he navigated his illness, with his family as support system.
In a 2013 thesis on suicides in cricket at the University of Chester, Shaun McNee scraped international cricketers' autobiographies for quotes on the emotional toll of the cricketing life. In it are excerpts from players like Herschelle Gibbs, Marcus Trescothick and Andrew Flintoff on the strains of touring, of developing "four-wall fever" in hotel rooms, of returning home and not being recognised by their children. Professional cricket gets lonely.
Sheldon Jackson, Saurashtra's senior pro, was homesick at the start of the last Ranji Trophy season, as his team's first two fixtures were away. It had been a difficult year for the 33-year-old, one where he'd needed to be in "three-four places at the same time", apart from dealing with his frustration at not being called up to the India A squad. His mother had battled tuberculosis, and he was aching to be home with his wife, who was pregnant with their first child.
Sheldon Jackson didn't seek professional help for his mental-health troubles but managed to play through the phase Prashant Bhoot / © Sportzpics
"I was not sleeping well," Jackson told TCM. "Whatever was going on on the field, I was not enjoying it a bit. It was always like, jaldi khatam ho jaye, mujhe ghar jaana hai [I hope this ends early, I want to be home]. I tried to speak to certain people but instead of trying to understand from where you're coming, people always try to be the stronger person. Ki nahin yaar, aisa nahi hai [It's not a big deal], be strong, we are this, we are that. But actually at the end of the day we are just humans. We may be cricketers but we are humans first."
Jackson played through his discomfort, coping by keeping himself occupied and in the gym, while those at home reassured him that things were under control. He had another stellar season, breaching the 800-run mark once again as Saurashtra won the Ranji Trophy. During this time he only spoke to one of his team-mates, Chirag Jani, whom he has known a long time, and didn't seek professional help because, as he put it, "I hadn't gone into mental trauma or something".
Former India batsman Aakash Chopra, now a broadcaster, says things were much the same when he was an active cricketer: there was "no way" you could tell a captain or coach if you were feeling down, because you would be benched. "By the time you reach the top level, you're already hardwired to not acknowledge or admit if you're having certain issues," Chopra told TCM.
He makes an important distinction between the challenge of having to hold on to a spot in the team, and having to battle mental-health issues. The former is part of the game, wherever it is played, and something players train to manage as they step up through the ranks. The average cricketer already knows that the odds of success are stacked against them. A bad day at a trial or a bad decision from an umpire can end careers, and there are no second chances. Chopra was hearing he was going to be dropped even as he prepared to make his debut for Delhi.
Chopra says he first began to feel lonely and disconnected from the game after he was dropped from the Indian team. As he looked to navigate that period, he was too conscious to be open about it; and that included self-judgement about whether being a recent Indian player had changed how he behaves. He contemplated leaving cricket, before trying counselling and an Art of Living course to ground himself.
"For those who start doing well, the sheer expectation also has a huge impact," says Parikh. "Anything which happens in the public domain brings a lot more expectation, which exaggerates everything about the failure. So that makes it even more difficult, especially when you are younger. And the same stress comes back when you're not young anymore. The moment you're established and become slightly more senior, you know there is someone knocking on the door."
Hotel rooms are mostly lonely places, and living out of a suitcase can take a mental toll Ryan Pierse / © Getty Images
"The nature of cricket is such that it tears at the nerves," cricket writer David Frith said to the Guardian in a 2001 article about suicides in English cricket. "Half-hearted cricketers are extremely rare. This game gets a grip on people such as only religious fanatics might recognise."
For an aspirational generation of Indian cricketers, growing up on broadcasts flavoured by machismo and one-upmanship, the pressure of expectation is bound to rise.
In the present circumstances there are fresh challenges. In the ongoing IPL, even as cricket-starved audiences tune in to watch on television, the players perform in empty stadiums and live in biosecure bubbles. "There are a number of other players who are very much in the same boat as Suresh Raina, and I just hope that the teams are aware of that and are catering for that," mental-conditioning coach Paddy Upton told ESPNcricinfo a fortnight before the tournament began. "There are coaches who are gonna be struggling, there are support staff who are gonna be struggling in that three-month bio-bubble."
The work before the team management, according to Upton, is "to understand who are the extroverts, the confidence players, the externally motivated players, those who are risk-averse, those who are fear-based, the pessimists. Those are the players we really need to nurture to bring them up to a place where they can be comfortable in their own lives, comfortable by themselves in their hotel rooms without that external validation and stimulation…"
IPL games and international matches are the most high-profile of India's cricket, but they are only a small proportion of it. In the 2019-20 season, India held 2036 domestic matches across men's and women's cricket and age groups. For that volume of cricket, and cricketers, the support system that currently exists barely qualifies as an afterthought.
In thinking about why the BCCI hasn't matched up with Australia and England on mental-well-being measures, one must consider the spectrum of opinions that Indian society holds on the topic. From a legal lens, attempting suicide was punishable under criminal law in India until 2017, when that provision of the penal code was restricted (but not removed altogether). A 2018 document floated in the Indian parliament said there are only 3827 psychiatrists in the country, against a requirement of 13,500.
A future archive of prime-time TV news since June 2020 will be filled with popular anchors trying to talk down any mention of mental illness in the case of Sushant Singh Rajput - the actor who played Dhoni in a biopic - who died by suicide. Some segments have gone as far as analysing his smiles in old footage to "prove" that he could not have been depressed; adding to that narrative, some celebrities with big followings have dismissed mental illnesses as a conspiracy or a hoax.
In the early '90s, when former India wicketkeeper Sadanand Viswanath was dealing with the death of his parents within a year of each other, the end of his Indian career, and a subsequent battle with alcoholism and depression - all in a short period of time - he considered seeing a psychiatrist. His friend, a doctor, intervened.
"I did seriously consider that option," Viswanath told TCM. "Until one fine day a friend of mine who is a doctor said, 'Vishy, even if there's nothing wrong with you, once you finish those sessions of counselling with a psychiatrist, you'll be bonkers. Better not see any psychiatrist.'"
Viswanath said he considers it one of the best pieces of advice he was given at the time.
"Ultimately your mental strength and your bouncing-back ability and your resilience, your perseverance, that gumption, that gut feel - it all depends on your self-respect, your belief system and not wanting to cut a sorry figure in society. Because you have played for the Indian team. That's the maryaad [conduct] one must have. When I walk up, people should say, 'Wow, here's a former Indian cricketer.' If you see me in a sorry state of affairs, what's that going to reflect on Indian cricket? Indian cricket becomes the loser. I don't want that to happen."
The likelihood of, say, depressive symptoms being categorised as "negative thinking" are strong even today. In the age of motivational coaches, genuine medical issues may inadvertently get overlooked.
"The mental-health component, which is the more biological component, by and large is very neglected, and that's why some of the recent [player] breaks have happened," Parikh reckons. "Those breaks could well have been a pure mental-health issue and not merely a burnout. We don't know from a distance."
The IPL, with its big-money auctions, has had a significant impact on players' prospects, and that has brought pressure in its wake Kalpak Pathak / © Hindustan Times/Getty Images
The Indian men's team has, from time to time, employed mental-conditioning coaches. The women's team, on the other hand, has been publicly - and unsuccessfully - asking for a sports psychologist since the end of the 2016 T20 World Cup. The absence of one has meant that the burden of dealing with issues as varied as anxiety, depression and eating disorders have fallen on the players themselves, alongside support staff hired for other roles.
As far as TCM could determine, the only formal initiative taken at board level has been the creation of a general player's handbook in 2017, based on the recommendation of the Mudgal committee, which was set up to look into various aspects of Indian cricket. The handbook - adapted for cricket by GoSports Foundation, who originally created it for athlete awareness around things like sponsorships and the media - contains a section on mental well-being in a 101 format; it informs players about the symptoms of mental illness and recommends steps on dealing with them, including advice to seek professional help. It is understood that copies of this handbook were published in English and Hindi, but several players - domestic and international - told TCM they had never heard of it.
In summary, the pattern that emerges is that players at various levels are either not being heard, or are wary of speaking about their troubles. In contrast, players and boards in England and Australia have been openly supportive of those who need breaks, even multiple breaks or permanent ones. In both countries, cricketers have reached out through the respective players' associations, which represent the welfare of past and current cricketers, and which have created enabling systems, such as anonymous helplines. In India, the players' association is exclusively for retired cricketers who have played a minimum of one international match or ten men's first-class matches or five women's first-class matches. And even then the association is too limited in its power for real help. It certainly didn't feature in the account of Praveen Kumar, who came close to shooting himself in 2019 as the silence of retirement closed in on him.
"I told myself, 'Kya hai yeh sab? Bas khatam karte hain,'" [What's all this? Let me just end it] Kumar told the Indian Express. He only stopped himself when his eyes fell upon a picture of his children, and was soon in therapy. The Express story tells of Kumar's agony after being dropped from the Indian team and missing out on the IPL - a life cooped up in his room, watching his own highlights reel.
A tendency to downplay and dismiss the prevalence of mental illness in India has been a byproduct of the media feeding frenzy in the wake of the suicide of the actor Sushant Singh Rajput Indranil Mukherjee / © AFP/Getty Images
It's not unheard of for former players to crave the highs of their fleeting time at the top. The dynamics of trying to become a top athlete involve such an obsessive relationship with the sport in the formative years that your identity is tied to it. With the advent of social media and multi-crore IPL contracts for teenagers, the risks are even higher, fears Parikh.
"If I was working with a young sportsperson who is suddenly doing well, I would put all my might into grounding this person into focusing on performance, shutting the noise of friends, shutting the noise of adulation, virtually not looking at your bank balance, and focusing on the next ball," he said. "If I'm not able to succeed in doing that, your failure rate would be higher. Look at those people who've had a great IPL, and who did not follow it up.
"Imagine a scenario where you know that endorsements will make a difference, where you know that social-media followership and your individual identity will also make a difference. How do you ensure that this component of your life is like an occupational need but not the core? You may get endorsements today, and one bad season and they're all done with."
There is work in progress on this front at the National Cricket Academy, where Rahul Dravid and his team have tried to roll out mental-health seminars for even those young players who aren't contracted or part of NCA camps, alongside those who represent India in age-group and developmental cricket.
Between that and Kohli's call for more openness, there is a start.
But for now, as the world's richest board ignores even the simplest of requests - a psychologist for its women's team, which has played two World Cup finals in three years - the creation of a comprehensive support system seems a distant dream.
Wednesday 28 December 2016
Saturday 14 December 2013
Khobhra-gate in New York may end nanny service for Indian diplomats
Chidanand Rajghatta in Times of India
WASHINGTON: Indian diplomats and officials serving abroad may lose the privilege of taking domestic help from India as a result of the Khobra-gate episode in New York where a mid-level Indian diplomat is in the dock for allegedly misrepresenting and underpaying her housekeeper.
The Indian government has vehemently challenged the US interpretation that led to the charges against Devyani Khobragade, but considering the number of such episodes in recent years and the financial implications (both in terms of legal fees to fight the cases and the restitution awarded to the complainants in some cases), the thinking is that the issue of taking domestic help abroad needs to be reexamined.
Even before the latest incident, the matter had been discussed at a Heads of Mission conference in New Delhi last year where various such cases were deliberated on. The ministry of external affairs is said to be looking for a long-term solution, including withdrawing the provision enabling taking housekeepers abroad, and instead compensating diplomats for employing local personnel.
This is easier said than done, according to some officials. Not only are there security sensitivities involved in going down this route (In case of the .S, there are also heightened intelligence issues considering recent developments,) but the costs will also be enormous given that diplomats often entertain late and travel at short notice.
Officials joked sourly that at $ 9.75 an hour in New York ($ 8.25 in Washington DC) plus overtime, any local labor they employ will earn more than the diplomats considered the hours they will be needed, while contesting the general impression that foreign postings are lavishly paid. The salaries are modest, they insist, and in fact it is the perks such as taking domestic help abroad that makes such postings tolerable they say.
In fact, federal minimum wages in the US, which is stuck at $ 7.25 since 2009, is poised to go up to $ 10 soon (some states like NY will mandate more in keeping with higher costs)
''Which Indian would pay a help Rs 6500 ($ 100) a day?'' asked Shakti Sinha, a former principal secretary in the government of India who did various stints abroad, including at the World Bank and various UN agencies, assuming eight normal working hours. Nevertheless, Sinha is for withdrawing the privilege of taking Indian help abroad while complying with local laws. At the same time, he says, New Delhi should also not ''spare any US diplomat who is even close to breaking any Indian domestic law.'' The suggestion here is that New Delhi does not similarly enforce its domestic laws strictly against foreign diplomats and officials.
Indeed, Indian officials say foreign diplomats in India, including US officials, will be on weak ground if New Delhi took their various infractions seriously but the Indian view is that diplomatic niceties need to be observed. They are incensed that in the case of Khobragade, the young mother of two was jumped on and handcuffed by US authorities when she was dropping her daughters to school. ''It was not as if she is a terrorist or proven criminal and was about to flee or was endangering lives,'' one official fumed. ''It could have been handled better.''
On Friday, Taranjit Sandhu, the charge d'affaires at the Indian Embassy in Washington once again conveyed New Delhi' displeasure at the incident, and according to an Embassy statement, ''reiterated Foreign Secretary of India's strong demarche to the US Ambassador in New Delhi regarding the treatment meted out to Dr Khobragade.''
''It was emphasised that Dr. Khobragade is a diplomat, who is in the U.S. in pursuance of her duties and hence is entitled to the courtesy due to a diplomat in the country of her work. She is also a young mother of two small children. Government of India is shocked and appalled at the manner in which she has been humiliated by the U.S. authorities. It was also conveyed in no uncertain terms that this kind of treatment to one of our diplomats is absolutely unacceptable,'' the statement said calling on the U.S. State Department ''to resolve the matter at the earliest''
But US officials were largely unrelenting in the matter. ''We are handling this incident through law enforcement channels. We have a long-standing partnership with India, and we expect that partnership will continue,'' a state department spokesperson told wire services.
Meanwhile, it turns out that the Indian diplomat who is at the center of a flaming row between New Delhi and Washington is also a Dalit women's rights champion.
Devyani Khobragade, the deputy consul-general of the Indian mission in New York, spoke in April this year on ''Women's Rights and the Influence of Demographics in India'' at the Australian Consulate in Manhattan. ''The continued entrenchment of women's rights through affirmative action, such as reservations for women in parliament, a holistic approach to education and gender sensitisation were also discussed by Dr Khobragade and the round-table participants,'' according to the Australian consulate, which identified her as a ''woman of the Dalit caste.''
On the social media though, there was little sympathy for the diplomat, with some readers pointing to her involvement in the Adarsh housing issue, where she is reportedly a member. Her father Uttam Khobragade, is a retired Maharashtra government bureaucrat and former head of Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (MHADA).
Others recalled several notorious cases of Indian families mistreating their domestic help and using them as slave labor, although the U.S charges against Khobragade mainly pertained to fraud and misrepresentation, not abuse.
In one of the most egregious cases the wife-husband team of Varsha and Mahender Sabhnani, NRIs who owned a multi-million dollar perfume business in New York, were sentenced in 2007 to 11 and 3 years respectively for abusing their Indonesian housekeepers. Their callousness and brutality provoked such revulsion that New York tabloids dubbed Varsha Sabhnani as ''Cruella De Evil.'' The couple was also ordered to pay restitution of more than a million dollars to the women they enslaved.
While that episode brought to light what the judge hearing case called modern day slave labor practice, Bharara has signaled that the U.S will not tolerate exploitation of foreign workers even by diplomats.
''Foreign nationals brought to the United States to serve as domestic workers are entitled to the same protections against exploitation as those afforded to United States citizens. The false statements and fraud alleged to have occurred here were designed to circumvent those protections so that a visa would issue for a domestic worker who was promised far less than a fair wage. This type of fraud on the United States and exploitation of an individual will not be tolerated,'' he said in a statement.
But Indian officials insist there was no intended fraud or misrepresentation. They point out that the domestic help in this case, Sangeeta Richard, was flown to the U.S at government expense, and she had no problems with her wages, which were split between paying her in New York and her family in India, in the eight months she worked in the Khobragade household. Things only got complicated when she wanted to seek permanent residency in the US.
Officials explained that because diplomats typically take care of all the other needs of the domestic help brought from India, such as housing, food, medical treatment, and trips back home, their written commitment to mandated local wage in western countries ( $ 9.95 per hour of $ 4500 per month in the Khobragade case) is only of a ''technical nature.'' The real cost does work out approximately to that, they maintain, adding that the situation has become complicated because in several cases, the domestic help from India have figured out they can make a killing and gain permanent residence by ''going legal.''
But the flip side is that this is the third such case involving the Indian consulate in New York. In June 2011, a former housekeeper, Santosh Bharadwaj, had sued India's then consul general in New York Prabhu Dayal, accusing him of intimidating her into forced labor and seeking sexual favors. The case is close to being settled out of court. In February 2012, a New York City Magistrate Judge ordered that Neena Malhotra, a diplomat at the Consulate, to pay nearly $1.5 million for forcing an under-aged Indian girl, Shanti Gurung, to work without pay and meting out ''barbaric treatment'' to her. The case is still being contested. There have also been such cases in Europe.
In most cases, Indian officials insist the complainants, helped by NGOs, exaggerate and conflate issues in an effort to seek permanent residency and restitution. ''The same complainants have had no problems working with the same officials in places such as Morocco or Cambodia. It is only when they come to US or Western Europe that all these issues crop up,'' one official fumed.
But much of the public and media perception in New York has been shaped by one egregious case of domestic abuse (not involving Indian diplomats) that occurred in 2007. The wife-husband team of Varsha and Mahender Sabhnani, NRIs who owned a multi-million dollar perfume business in New York, were sentenced to 11 and 3 years respectively for abusing their Indonesian housekeepers. Their callousness and brutality provoked such revulsion that New York tabloids dubbed Varsha Sabhnani as ''Cruella De Evil.'' The couple was also ordered to pay restitution of more than a million dollars to the women they enslaved.
For many, the case encapsulated the Indian practice of treating domestic help badly. It's a rap that even diplomats have had to bear in the line of duty.
WASHINGTON: Indian diplomats and officials serving abroad may lose the privilege of taking domestic help from India as a result of the Khobra-gate episode in New York where a mid-level Indian diplomat is in the dock for allegedly misrepresenting and underpaying her housekeeper.
The Indian government has vehemently challenged the US interpretation that led to the charges against Devyani Khobragade, but considering the number of such episodes in recent years and the financial implications (both in terms of legal fees to fight the cases and the restitution awarded to the complainants in some cases), the thinking is that the issue of taking domestic help abroad needs to be reexamined.
Even before the latest incident, the matter had been discussed at a Heads of Mission conference in New Delhi last year where various such cases were deliberated on. The ministry of external affairs is said to be looking for a long-term solution, including withdrawing the provision enabling taking housekeepers abroad, and instead compensating diplomats for employing local personnel.
This is easier said than done, according to some officials. Not only are there security sensitivities involved in going down this route (In case of the .S, there are also heightened intelligence issues considering recent developments,) but the costs will also be enormous given that diplomats often entertain late and travel at short notice.
Officials joked sourly that at $ 9.75 an hour in New York ($ 8.25 in Washington DC) plus overtime, any local labor they employ will earn more than the diplomats considered the hours they will be needed, while contesting the general impression that foreign postings are lavishly paid. The salaries are modest, they insist, and in fact it is the perks such as taking domestic help abroad that makes such postings tolerable they say.
In fact, federal minimum wages in the US, which is stuck at $ 7.25 since 2009, is poised to go up to $ 10 soon (some states like NY will mandate more in keeping with higher costs)
''Which Indian would pay a help Rs 6500 ($ 100) a day?'' asked Shakti Sinha, a former principal secretary in the government of India who did various stints abroad, including at the World Bank and various UN agencies, assuming eight normal working hours. Nevertheless, Sinha is for withdrawing the privilege of taking Indian help abroad while complying with local laws. At the same time, he says, New Delhi should also not ''spare any US diplomat who is even close to breaking any Indian domestic law.'' The suggestion here is that New Delhi does not similarly enforce its domestic laws strictly against foreign diplomats and officials.
Indeed, Indian officials say foreign diplomats in India, including US officials, will be on weak ground if New Delhi took their various infractions seriously but the Indian view is that diplomatic niceties need to be observed. They are incensed that in the case of Khobragade, the young mother of two was jumped on and handcuffed by US authorities when she was dropping her daughters to school. ''It was not as if she is a terrorist or proven criminal and was about to flee or was endangering lives,'' one official fumed. ''It could have been handled better.''
On Friday, Taranjit Sandhu, the charge d'affaires at the Indian Embassy in Washington once again conveyed New Delhi' displeasure at the incident, and according to an Embassy statement, ''reiterated Foreign Secretary of India's strong demarche to the US Ambassador in New Delhi regarding the treatment meted out to Dr Khobragade.''
''It was emphasised that Dr. Khobragade is a diplomat, who is in the U.S. in pursuance of her duties and hence is entitled to the courtesy due to a diplomat in the country of her work. She is also a young mother of two small children. Government of India is shocked and appalled at the manner in which she has been humiliated by the U.S. authorities. It was also conveyed in no uncertain terms that this kind of treatment to one of our diplomats is absolutely unacceptable,'' the statement said calling on the U.S. State Department ''to resolve the matter at the earliest''
But US officials were largely unrelenting in the matter. ''We are handling this incident through law enforcement channels. We have a long-standing partnership with India, and we expect that partnership will continue,'' a state department spokesperson told wire services.
Meanwhile, it turns out that the Indian diplomat who is at the center of a flaming row between New Delhi and Washington is also a Dalit women's rights champion.
Devyani Khobragade, the deputy consul-general of the Indian mission in New York, spoke in April this year on ''Women's Rights and the Influence of Demographics in India'' at the Australian Consulate in Manhattan. ''The continued entrenchment of women's rights through affirmative action, such as reservations for women in parliament, a holistic approach to education and gender sensitisation were also discussed by Dr Khobragade and the round-table participants,'' according to the Australian consulate, which identified her as a ''woman of the Dalit caste.''
On the social media though, there was little sympathy for the diplomat, with some readers pointing to her involvement in the Adarsh housing issue, where she is reportedly a member. Her father Uttam Khobragade, is a retired Maharashtra government bureaucrat and former head of Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (MHADA).
Others recalled several notorious cases of Indian families mistreating their domestic help and using them as slave labor, although the U.S charges against Khobragade mainly pertained to fraud and misrepresentation, not abuse.
In one of the most egregious cases the wife-husband team of Varsha and Mahender Sabhnani, NRIs who owned a multi-million dollar perfume business in New York, were sentenced in 2007 to 11 and 3 years respectively for abusing their Indonesian housekeepers. Their callousness and brutality provoked such revulsion that New York tabloids dubbed Varsha Sabhnani as ''Cruella De Evil.'' The couple was also ordered to pay restitution of more than a million dollars to the women they enslaved.
While that episode brought to light what the judge hearing case called modern day slave labor practice, Bharara has signaled that the U.S will not tolerate exploitation of foreign workers even by diplomats.
''Foreign nationals brought to the United States to serve as domestic workers are entitled to the same protections against exploitation as those afforded to United States citizens. The false statements and fraud alleged to have occurred here were designed to circumvent those protections so that a visa would issue for a domestic worker who was promised far less than a fair wage. This type of fraud on the United States and exploitation of an individual will not be tolerated,'' he said in a statement.
But Indian officials insist there was no intended fraud or misrepresentation. They point out that the domestic help in this case, Sangeeta Richard, was flown to the U.S at government expense, and she had no problems with her wages, which were split between paying her in New York and her family in India, in the eight months she worked in the Khobragade household. Things only got complicated when she wanted to seek permanent residency in the US.
Officials explained that because diplomats typically take care of all the other needs of the domestic help brought from India, such as housing, food, medical treatment, and trips back home, their written commitment to mandated local wage in western countries ( $ 9.95 per hour of $ 4500 per month in the Khobragade case) is only of a ''technical nature.'' The real cost does work out approximately to that, they maintain, adding that the situation has become complicated because in several cases, the domestic help from India have figured out they can make a killing and gain permanent residence by ''going legal.''
But the flip side is that this is the third such case involving the Indian consulate in New York. In June 2011, a former housekeeper, Santosh Bharadwaj, had sued India's then consul general in New York Prabhu Dayal, accusing him of intimidating her into forced labor and seeking sexual favors. The case is close to being settled out of court. In February 2012, a New York City Magistrate Judge ordered that Neena Malhotra, a diplomat at the Consulate, to pay nearly $1.5 million for forcing an under-aged Indian girl, Shanti Gurung, to work without pay and meting out ''barbaric treatment'' to her. The case is still being contested. There have also been such cases in Europe.
In most cases, Indian officials insist the complainants, helped by NGOs, exaggerate and conflate issues in an effort to seek permanent residency and restitution. ''The same complainants have had no problems working with the same officials in places such as Morocco or Cambodia. It is only when they come to US or Western Europe that all these issues crop up,'' one official fumed.
But much of the public and media perception in New York has been shaped by one egregious case of domestic abuse (not involving Indian diplomats) that occurred in 2007. The wife-husband team of Varsha and Mahender Sabhnani, NRIs who owned a multi-million dollar perfume business in New York, were sentenced to 11 and 3 years respectively for abusing their Indonesian housekeepers. Their callousness and brutality provoked such revulsion that New York tabloids dubbed Varsha Sabhnani as ''Cruella De Evil.'' The couple was also ordered to pay restitution of more than a million dollars to the women they enslaved.
For many, the case encapsulated the Indian practice of treating domestic help badly. It's a rap that even diplomats have had to bear in the line of duty.
Monday 21 January 2013
Sunday 20 January 2013
Thursday 3 January 2008
Happiness For Sale
By Mike Ghouse
02 January, 2008
MikeGhouse.net
MikeGhouse.net
A sale transaction requires consideration for exchange of products and services. The consideration in buying happiness is your effort. Happiness is on Sale, it is on sale, because the effort required is minimal against the gain. Though a lopsided transaction, the supply is plentiful and does not take away anything from anyone but enrich every one with a heart felt smile.
Remember the last time you helped someone? You got some one up when he or she fell and you were thanked profusely for that act of kindness, do you recall that joy? You were beaming and your fellow workers and friends wanted to know what it was; you humbly shared the small experience.
Do you recall the twinkle in your eyes and wanted to praise those two that made the national news recently? When a man fell on the tract in New York subway, the other man jumped to save his life risking his own. Then a Bangladeshi student stood up against the bullies who beat up the subway passengers who wished Happy Hanukkah to that bully.
Life becomes meaningful and powerful when you do things for others; it is the anecdote against sorrow that surrounds us from time to time. That is the wisdom in Bahai, Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Islam, Jain, Jewish, Native religions, Shinto, Sikh, Wicca, Zoroastrian and other faiths – living for the sake of others, a proven formula for happiness.
Way back in 1978, my Peugeot 504 failed me on a Saudi Freeway to Dhahran, I stood there in 116 degrees heat waving at every vehicle that drove on a full throttle going over 140 MPH. I was dying with thirst and blisters were all over my lips and my face, I looked like some one from the western movies. The drivers, who wanted to stop, could not do so within a walking range. After nearly five hours of eternity, a man finally stopped and drove his Toyota truck the full half mile in reverse. His Burqa Clad wife was with him on the passenger's side and in the back were a couple of goats and sheep. I was imagining sitting with the goats and started feeling faintly, but he pulled his wife closer to him and asked me to hop in that little Toyota. I was too tired to worry where I was going. He gave me the life giving water and drove.
We barely communicated with my minimal Arabic and his English, we went to his home some where in the outer rim of the town of Abqaiq. His family brought in the tea and other refreshments followed by a huge dinner with several of his friends. He had one of his friends haul off my car and was getting it fixed; the fuel injection vehicles don't work very well in that kind of heat. I had purchased that Car from Nick Gruev, an Albanian American friend out of Houston.
The Sheikh's friends came were fixing the Hubbly Bubbly (Huqqa) and passing it between their friends, I was dreading to put that thing in my mouth should it come to me, sure enough it did and reluctantly I pretended puffing it. Around 8 PM, his mechanic friend drove up with my car.
As I was ready to leave, I thanked Shaikh Ahmed Al-Sabah profusely and pulled my wallet to pay, he pushed my hand and said "Aqhi, you are my guest and don't even think of it." I pleaded, it was the greatest favor a stranger has done to me and I asked, how I can pay.
He looked at me intently and asked, would you promise me something? In gratitude I said yes, but shuddered what now? He took time and looked at me again and said these life changing words to me "Next time, if you see some one needing help, would you stop and help?" I eagerly said Yes, satisfied; he asked again, are you sure? I gave an emphatic yes, to which he said, "Alhamdu Lillah (praise the lord) that is my reward.
I buy happiness at every nook and corner; it is very satisfying to see other people in their full human form when they give their beautiful smile. A genuine smile is the most beautiful thing on the earth, nothing compares to it.
Every day, you have those opportunities. Make an effort in doing things for others and see how easy it is to be happy.
Here are a few thoughts for you to ponder:
Push yourselves to be prejudice free against people from every meeting, incident, TV shows, and work or news items that you come across.
Find excuses to greet other people and wish them well, don't worry what they think of you, just do it and see the response and counter response.
Work on bringing humility and fight off every thought and action that gives you the idea that your race, faith, nation, culture, language or life style is superior to others.
Commit to yourselves that your words and actions do not flare up conflicts, but mitigate them.
Commit yourselves that you are going to do your share of living for others, for starters one hour a week will enrich you with joy.
It does not take any money; it is your goodwill that brings you the joy. It is yours to keep and is on sale.
Best wishes for 2008
She said what? About who? Shameful celebrity quotes on Search Star!
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