26 July,2018 07:00 AM IST | | Shunashir Sen
(From left) Jayant Bhadula, Karan Katiyar and guest rapper Raoul Kerr
It's an invisible scar. You fight the pain with all the reserves of courage you can muster. But the wound often turns into a gaping hole within the recesses of your brain. So, you cover it up with a smile. Yet, it keeps festering within. It grows and grows like a balloon being filled with noxious air, until you are ready to burst, too tired to keep putting up a brave face. No hope, no answer, seems left available. And the only solution then, you feel, lies in the sharpness of a blade, noose of a rope, trigger of a gun or from the terrace of a building.
Mental health issues are such an intensely personal struggle that sometimes, surrendering your will to live seems like the ultimate relief.
Karan Katiyar and Jayant Bhadula - who formed the folk metal band Bloodywood in 2016 - know this only too well. For, they were left with a feeling of impotent helplessness when a number of people they knew took recourse in suicide, unable to bear the anguish afflicting them. So, when the duo decided to write their first original composition, Jee Veere, they decided to address the subject with their lyrics.
But it's a step they took while launching the song's video this month that translates into concrete help for those battling mental illnesses. Part of the crowd-funded money they had accumulated for Jee Veere was spent on pre-purchasing 60 hour-long, face-to-face personal counselling sessions, which listeners can avail for free.
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"All you have to do is log on to hopenetwork.in and enter a code for the free session," Katiyar says, adding that the response has been positive so far. So positive, in fact, that some people who made use of the offer were only too happy with the experience to buy additional codes so that others, too, can reap the same benefits.
For us, frankly - even if you attribute it to canny marketing - we have never heard of an indie band taking such an initiative, at least not in this country. And the endeavour reminds us of a quote originally attributed to the Scottish author, Ian Maclaren. It goes, "Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle."
Log on to: https://goo.gl/L3tf9M to watch the video for Jee Veere and avail of the offer
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