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Here is What They #ChallengetoChange This International Women’s Day

Written By: Tasneem Akbari Kutubuddin
March 7, 2021
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International Women’s Day 2021 has this year’s theme as “choose to challenge”. We asked our changemakers, readers, and supporters to join this cause with their very own stigmas, biases, and prejudices towards women that they feel have no place in the world in 2021 and asked them to take up a challenge to change the same.

Here are the responses we received for “I Challenge to Change”

  • Dr. Anubha Mahajan- Founder, Chronic Pain India

I challenge myself to change the perspective that it’s not bad to be an independent woman and live by yourself and do things by yourself

Dr. Anubha Mahajan

  • Unnathi Suranaa – Ambassador, Down Syndrome Federation of India

  I challenge myself to change the stigmas associated with Down Syndrome.

Unnathi suranaa
  • Preethika & Narayanan – Travel Bloggers, Passing Ports   
  • We challenge the notion that housework is a woman’s job only.
Passing Ports
  • Meghnaa Surana – Youth Coach, Educator

I challenge myself to change the fact that girls need not be ambitious ’cause they are not the breadwinners anyway.

meghnaa surana
  • Rashmi Karadalli – Software Professional

I challenge to change the way women are judged by the clothes they wear.

rashmi karadalli

Zahabiya Kutubuddin- Blogger at Youthpur

I challenge to change the unhygienic and difficult menstruation practices followed by women.

zahabiya kutubuddin

Pragya Dugar – NLP Life Coach, Kogniifit Plus Life Class

I challenge the change to the fact that a woman should compromise her dreams for her relationships.

Pragya dugar
  • Tasneem Kutubuddin – Content Creator, Infano

I challenge to change the opinion that a woman needs a man to complete her being.

Tasneem Akbari Kutubuddin
  • Ujani Bhunia – Software Business Analyst

I challenge myself to change being considered lesser than my partner because I am a woman.

Ujani Bhunia

Each one of us has our own struggle to overcome, our own war to win, and along the way we hope to change our society into a more inclusive, gender-equal one. Let’s strongly say #IChallengetoChange and let’s not stop this challenge till we actually feel things change. Let this not stop with this year, or this women’s day alone. This should be an ongoing war, a revolution which should stop only when the needful has been achieved.

Mail us here what you would like to challenge to change.

Happy International Women’s Day- Team Infano

challenge to changechoose to challenge

Tasneem Akbari Kutubuddin

Tasneem Akbari Kutubuddin has done her masters in Journalism & Communication and has worked as a senior journalist, editor and columnist for leading publications like The Logical Indian, Deccan Chronicle, Worldwide Media Corporation, The Bridge and Provoke.
With Infano, she hopes to create more awareness about women’s health issues. Suffering with Fibromyalgia, a chronic pain condition, she has also been advocating for its awareness through media.

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Infano Care

The Andhra Murders and The Mental Health Connection

Written By: Tasneem Akbari Kutubuddin
February 2, 2021 | 10:08 AM |
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The tragic killing of two young women in Andhra Pradesh by their highly educated parents shook the country last week. As days pass and the police probe continues, fresh revelations are coming to the fore about the murders of two sisters by their parents in Madanapalli in Chittor district of Andhra Pradesh. 

The accused parents have been identified as Purushotham, a vice-principal of a government college, and Padamja a gold medallist in mathematics.

Unfolding of events in the Andhra Murders case

Deeply spiritual people, the couple bludgeoned the daughters with dumbbells and Trishul as they wanted to “appease supernatural forces”. The couple was followers of Mehar Baba, Sai Baba, and Rajaneesh or Osho. They regularly used to visit Shirdi. 

The older daughter Alekhya was 27-years-old. She worked as a forest officer. She returned home during the coronavirus pandemic and was preparing for the civil services examination. The younger daughter Sai Divya was 23-years-old and had completed her post-graduation in business administration (MBA) and was pursuing a course in music.

chittoor sisters double murders
Sisters Alekhya and Sai Divya

According to neighbours and colleagues, Purushotham’s family was deeply superstitious. The family had remained isolated since the pandemic set in. Even domestic workers were not allowed inside the house. 

The couple murdered the older daughter after a puja and then killed the younger daughter. The mother felt that there was evil inside her younger daughter’s head and so she broke it open. Later the vice-principal called one of his co-workers and informed him about the murders who alerted the police. On arrival the police found the couple in a state of trance and told the police that their daughters would come alive after some time and to not interfere in the ritual.

While one would wonder how such educated people could fall prey to such superstitions and malpractices to the extent of murdering their own offsprings, mental health professionals believe that this is ‘a brain disease and can happen to anybody.’

“The delusional parents is what severe untreated mental illness, unfortunately, looks like sometimes”, says Psychiatrist Anirudh Kala.

“These are cases of what the French call Folie-deux or shared psychosis. In this case, probably the mother is the primary patient who has either Schizophrenia or Bipolar disorder with psychosis. Typically the person who ‘ catches’ the delusion secondarily is emotionally dependent on the ‘primary’ patient and starts sharing his/her world view.”

Shared psychotic disorder (Folie a deux) is an unusual mental disorder characterized by sharing a delusion among two or more people who are in a close relationship. The (inducer, primary) who has a psychotic disorder with delusions influences another individual or more (induced, secondary) with a specific belief. It commonly presents among two individuals, but in rare cases can include larger groups, i.e., family and called folie a famille.

Source

Insanity or unflinching devotion?

The social media posts of Alekhya suggested that she was attracted to Osho and his teachings. She also claimed that she brought her pet dog to life after killing it.

Social media posts of the deceased elder daughter Alekhya suggests that she was a big fan of late spiritual guru Osho and strongly believed in rebirth and salvation.

In some of her posts, Alekhya had described herself as an ‘Osho lover’ and a ‘dhyani’, according to a media report.

The girl’s other social media posts also give credibility to the theory that she went into a spiritual trance and believed in salvation which resulted in her and her sister’s murder by their parents. 

 ‘I Am Shiva’, Claims Andhra Parent Accused of Killing Daughters, appears delusional.

Where does one draw the line between superstition and religious/spiritual beliefs?

“The tragedy which destroyed a whole family was wholly avoidable if treatment had been instituted at any point in time”, says Dr. Anirudh. “Part of treatment is to separate the two delusional sharers. The ‘secondary’ patient recovers fast sometimes even without treatment. This seems to be already happening with the husband. Unfortunately the worst for the couple is yet to come when they recover and are hit by the enormous guilt over what they have done.”

Alas we still struggle with acceptance of mental illness and access to mental health treatments. Some religious beliefs are so deeply rooted in superstitions and blind faith over religious godmen that we cannot separate it from logic and fail to use our reasoning. But the religious aspect was only a part of it. The larger problem here was the delusion the parents suffered from. 

“In an ideal world they would be acquitted on grounds of mental illness but that is unlikely given the lack of sensitivity of the system and our archaic law about the culpability of the mentally ill. But in an ideal world, they would have been diagnosed and treated and none of it would have happened.”

andhra murderschittoor double murdermental healthmental illnessmental wellnessParental Problems

Tasneem Akbari Kutubuddin

Tasneem Akbari Kutubuddin has done her masters in Journalism & Communication and has worked as a senior journalist, editor and columnist for leading publications like The Logical Indian, Deccan Chronicle, Worldwide Media Corporation, The Bridge and Provoke.
With Infano, she hopes to create more awareness about women’s health issues. Suffering with Fibromyalgia, a chronic pain condition, she has also been advocating for its awareness through media.

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