With the observance of the World Mental Health Day yesterday, Bangladesh joins the international community in yet another common endeavour to make the human society a little better. Certainly, somewhere there are some committed people whose unflagging efforts account for the celebration of the numerous world ‘this day or that day' throughout the globe. But sometimes they come so crowding together that common people Just wonder what they mean. Even more puzzling is their short-lived but ostentatious fanfares and merriment. Some people of the specific field and a few distinguished personalities, including government functionaries, give the occasion some grace but then the rest is a silence.

Barring a few exception, this is the symptom of marking the world days, international years and the international decades. About one thing then there is no doubt that we do not qualify to be any exception in this regard, least of all when it comes to a subject like mental health. Of the world’s 500,000,000 mentally ill. Bangladesh is home to 5.000,000 such patients (let us hope the figure is reliable and not fraught with controversy like the statistics of population and literacy) — which means the ratio is half that of the world. Much as this may look healthy, there is however little cause for euphoria; still less for neglecting it. In a land of integrated family, close-knit society with its traditional moral and spiritual strength, mental derangement should nave been almost a totally foreign thing — which once indeed was the case, but not any more.

This is enough indication that not everything is going well on our mental health front. Social scientists perhaps will be the most competent people to adequately explain what really has gone wrong. To . our mind, however, there is little doubt that a large ' part of the problem owes to unbearable poverty and unemployment. In the affluent society, this problem has assumed the forms of western society which has been paying a heavy price for its indisciplined life, lax morals, uncontrolled consumerism, comfort and luxury. All those vices are just making an inroad into our system. A balanced development complemented by our traditional values can perhaps be an answer to this personal trauma and social problem. -