High Five India | Why Are We Anxious?

[00:00:00] You are both a psychiatrist, but when you get low and in your dark moments, what do you do? Who do you go to? I will talk to my friends, I'll talk to my wife, I'll talk to my family. They may not know it that I'm feeling low, but I will actually, I'm pretty expressive in these things. And I will try and seek help early because we can't resolve everything. I mean, my mum and my wife believe in the power of prayer.

[00:00:26] I'm not so much of a praying person, but it's about what we individually think is good for us. And good for me would be just meet with a friend, just have a chat with them, sit down with them over a meal. My running is my thing, you already kind of demonstrated that. It does help me stay fit and also kind of mentally fit. I think it helps me keep my mental energy and ward off a lot of stress, I think.

[00:00:55] So I think it's also my dynamic meditation time. Because I think when I'm running, it's like doing yoga. The way yoga works for some people, I would struggle to do yoga myself personally. So that's good. But I think the talking is really important. I also have people whom I can talk to. And I think that's really important that we have someone maybe whom we can be ourselves with. Ourselves with. Ourselves with, absolutely. And I think that sometimes... No judgement, absolutely. No judgement. No judgement.

[00:01:21] Just be. And I think that's to just be with someone you can be with. Correct. Isn't it? Okay. How much do you run in a week? So I ran anything around 40 miles, which is about 50-60 kilometres that I'm training. So I'm going to be running the Cape Town Marathon next summer. So I think that's what I'll build up to. I'm running about 40 kilometres now. I've been here to about 60-65 kilometres. And you don't have your... any music? Not usually. I am.

[00:01:50] Last year when I ran a very long ultramarathon, which I ran, this is the longest, one of the oldest ultramarathons, which was 88 kilometres from Durban to Pietermaritzburg. When I was training for that, I used to... I felt guilty to just use 3-4 hours of running time without doing anything. So I should listen to podcasts. But mostly I do. I am more than I am. I am more than I am. But that's a very good way of doing it. But actually, it's a great meditation. I've heard runners say that. A very dear friend of mine is a runner.

[00:02:19] He tried to get me into it and I got plantar fasciitis. And since then, I stopped and I gained weight. I always say it to people. Low and slow. I use the watch only to make sure I don't run faster than what I should. So what is lower and slower for starters? So for starters, just walk. Just start, walk and then maybe add a... You want to train with Amy? Yes. I think, yes. Go to Derbyshire. 40 kgs less. That will sort out my anxiety. 1. 1. 1. Okay. Let's go to the second one.

[00:02:49] Second week. Just on the second one. You both are doctors of Indian origin and psychiatrists here. How is it different for you to be in this environment? And have you been seen differently? What do you... How do you give care differently? Any migrant will realize and show that once you take that plane, things are never going to be exactly the same. Home is both places, you know, and it's very difficult. You always have the dual identity and there will always be the pros and cons balancing.

[00:03:18] We've all probably faced direct racist abuse. We've been called names by our patients, sometimes by other people. So that's not great when that happens. Both Jess and I have spent our lives fighting the health inequalities for our patients, but also inequalities for our colleagues. We know that that is harder. But then you also bring some advantages. And I think the community building skills that we already have innately within us, the... A lot of India...

[00:03:47] Being Indian is about taking joy in small things. The entrepreneurial mindset that most people have and that you grow up with, you know. When you've grown up in a system where you constantly have to hustle and make things work, then you bring that energetic and problem-solving mindset, which is a great boon to places like the UK. So I think it's got pros and cons. I think we're enriched. I mean, I'm very proud of my Indian heritage. I was born in East Africa.

[00:04:16] I did my medicine from Potala, went back to Tanzania and then came here. I feel very enriched by that experience. What is the one thing from the India setup that the mental health in the UK system could learn or benefit from? I would say as an adult psychiatrist and a community psychiatrist, I think we could be doing a bit more in terms of the community building and then tapping into the communities.

[00:04:41] You can't have the statutory services acting as a quasi-community, you know. So you can't have a doctor and a social worker and nurse making the community for your patient. I think, sadly, for many of my patients, that's probably still the case, that they don't have any other wider community. And I think that is something that I feel people like Jason and I could do a bit more consciously in terms of adding that community building skills. I would agree with him. Yoga should be all part of mainstream, to me, to be truthful.

[00:05:11] I might be biased, but I think yoga has definitely one of those. Okay. What is it about India that you miss the most here? I miss those friends and family, you know, medical school, all those formative years when we had, we still go, we have a reunion. I miss all of that. I don't miss the parathas because we have lovely parathas at home. We have lovely ladus at home. We have, and now here in the UK, you get fantastic Indian cuisines.

[00:05:39] You'll get Delhi street food if you come to Manchester. Yes. You'll get Mumbai street food if you come to Manchester. It's really Indian chefs who come here. So I know people miss that Indian food. You go here, you can get fantastic Indian food. I miss that informalness. People can just go out in chapels and nobody's judgmental. People can just relax. I like the colour. My wife always said this when she came here first. She said, why is everybody wearing black, whether it's a celebration?

[00:06:08] Grey, white, black, blue and navy blue. Yeah. But that colour that we bring from India, that vibrant colour. Yeah. What is not so impressive about that? I am coming to Manchester to eat all of that. I was going to say colour, but yes. I mean, I think that's, I think going to India is like a sensory explosion. You know, so I think I miss the noises, the mitti ki kushbu, the sands. I think especially the Mumbai rains, the Mumbai monsoon, I think I really miss that. And colours definitely.

[00:06:38] I don't miss the traffic noise and the honking, but I saw a reel recently where somebody said that, well, I've come back from India to the UK and I'm missing that. And they were carrying around a recourse voice. It's gone viral that reel has, I can tell you that. So I don't particularly miss that, but I think still the whole sensory experience of all the senses. All the senses are... Can I just disagree with him on just one thing? I love that, that honking and everything. I do that when I go there as well, you know.

[00:07:08] It is most freedom. My challenge is always, I tell my friends, look, I'm going to drive in Mumbai, not honk at all. And we still do it. And then they say, well, are you sure? I always say, I don't know why. Do you win tight or you don't? I do. I drive without honking. I always drive when I go to India. Do you? And are you able to come back and drive as well? Absolutely. I have stopped driving in India after learning to do it. I don't know what I go to India. I love driving in India. It's amazing. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's all running. It's all running.

[00:07:37] My son's bucket list includes sitting on the top of the bus. I've done that. I've done that. He said, that's my bucket list. Hanging from the bus. Hanging from the train is... There's some joy and freedom. It was a teacher, get off, get off. I feel like I'm here. That I feel quite regulated, if you like. I feel less freedom. The moment I step foot in India, I just feel that I've been a good job.

[00:08:07] I can do what I like. Here I feel... Who are those? He's been turned. He's been turned. So don't do both marathon. Don't do it. No, I agree with you, actually. I love it. Do I get six high fives? Me, girl, five. I'll tell you the... I mean, I don't know if they have time for this whole story, but this is Tanzanian story. So I think I should tell well, JS is there. Because we had a near-death experience when we went to Tanzania. Because you know, exactly like in the freedom.

[00:08:35] We took a little boat to Graveyard Island. You know, it's in Graveyard Island. It's in Graveyard Island. Anyway. And the thing is, on the way out, the weather was lovely. Way back, the weather was terrible. Two weeks of waves. And there were 17 of us on the boat and only five life-check kids. And my mum and dad, Sari, Yevo... You know, so I think too much... You're not traumatic. It was very traumatic. He really died on that... Oh, I'm very sorry. So this was his therapeutic experience by the way.

[00:09:04] He was better for it. So I would not support the regulation to say safety na ho. But somehow, I don't know if I'm right. I don't... Well, we might check it later on. But there are less accidents that's compared to the population. Because we are always vigilant on the Indian roads. Here we are driving in zombie mode. There is some... I'm used to that. People have worked with this. You take out all road signs and then let all the chaos merge in. And everybody is very, very vigilant.

[00:09:33] You know, two things we could bring from the culture there, you ask me. One is, chalta hai. That's a good attitude. Not always, but often. Mentally also. And the second thing is, jughaar. In India, there is a jughaar for everything. Yes, creative. It's called creative solution making. Chalta hai. That's a good attitude. I know. Now that I've forgotten the number, but let me just... What is it about India that the world doesn't clock?

[00:10:01] The world does stereotype Indians. And the images you will see on a lot of the social media and in news is not about the India that I was growing up in as I was in medical school. Of course, there's a lot of poverty, but there's a lot of kindness in India as well. It's an amazingly, despite all of the problems we have in India, it is so kind, you know. I find, so that's one thing.

[00:10:28] And they don't get all the noise that we make, the music, the Bollywood title stuff. They don't get that, you know. They don't understand the changing the bubble culture, you know. They don't understand music in a film. I think that particularly in the UK, but also maybe across the world, what they don't get is national pride. That how we can have... I mean, we had a lot of debates here in the UK about people putting flags up. And I think it's created so much controversy.

[00:10:53] And I think to get it right where, you know, you have pride in the nation and how that can be a big force. And I think I see that in a lot of people where they just take vicatious pride in the fact that India is doing well, you know. And they might themselves not be doing very well. That's quite amazing to see that you can still take pride in the nation doing well when you have not benefited from it.

[00:11:16] I think that's something that people don't get, you know, because I think people across the world sometimes feel that, well, if I have not benefited from it, how can I take joy in countries? So it's more community. The same come from community feeling and the fact that you can feel happy. Also, it's just the kind of respect for the nation. Nation. Yeah, yeah. And how do you balance that? I think that's something that is not easy to do. When you go back to India now, well, how different do you see it? Do you think it's changed? I think it changes every time.

[00:11:46] But I think also India is very resistant to change. I think when I first came here, I think MTV was just coming in or had just come in and people were thinking that, oh, my God, like India is going to become westernized, etc. And what's happened is that all those channels have had to learn how to speak Hindi and then, you know, communicate with. And if anything, people speaking Hindi, it's all survived, you know.

[00:12:08] So I feel that people have worried a lot about Indian identity or Indian cultural identity being appropriated or be replaced by other identities. I think it's quite resilient. I think I have a very completely opposite view. I think we are quite relaxed with the fact that, okay, you do it, we do it. No, but I sort of mean, I mean, I feel that it's actually quite, I think it used to be people used to worry about it, right?

[00:12:32] I mean, I feel that on the whole, we are quite welcoming of other cultures because we know that I think things will change and then we will. Yeah, chicken tikka masala is the favorite here. Our hands are not made here. No. Okay, India for you in one word. Energizing. Vibrant, going places. Brilliant, thank you very much. That was three words. How did you run the marathon in India? Of course, Mumbai marathon two times. Yes, how did you eat Pau Bhaji in Mumbai?

[00:13:03] 100% Cannon Pau Bhaji. So, which is so much butter that I think... Well, you can run it out. I know the country's butter is like before we run out. You can't run off a bad diet. Your favorite, the must go India food? Oh, must go and you have Vada Pau. Vada Pau, okay. I love it. Go to Indian food when you go to India. Listen, I'm Punjabi. You know paratha. Paratha. Allu wala paratha. Oh, here, makkidi roti te saag.

[00:13:31] With a touch of butter on it. Salted butter. And I tell you, Hari Mirch. I tell you my mouth is watering even now. Honestly. This is not the only mental health problem. It's done. Saag three times a day. Saag three times a day on prescription. I think this is the best question. Which food will sort out your mental health problem? No, which food will sort out your anxiety? Straight off. Half fifty percent. Does Pateala Paik count for it or no?

[00:14:03] Trust the Punjabi do come up with that answer. Don't say, Dave Ji. For me, I know. I don't have to eat South Indian food. That is my personal Dave. For anxiety? Okay. Shakar with a bit of cure on it. And you eat it with paratha. It's so beautiful. Gurka Shakar. Or Golgappa. You get a nice Thandaus. Beautiful. Or if you're really feeling great.

[00:14:32] And you're feeling like a rebel. Let's drink some water. What is it here? It's a water. I'll tell you. I'll tell you. I'll tell you. Oh, oh, oh, oh. I can't give proper water. I guarantee you. But water is good. I'll get in the house. I'll get in the house. I'll eat it. It's a water shop too. Yes, water shop too. But we haven't cracked the Golgappa, Panipuri. I mean there are too many names. And what about completely here in the UK? Puchka, right? But Patasha.

[00:15:03] But we've done it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.