5 things Salman Khan's 'Kick' teaches you about Indian psychiatrists

In recent interviews, actor Salman Khan has stressed upon how important it is to make films that are “socially responsible”. The heroes that Khan has played in films like Jai Ho and Kick emphasise this point by attempting to rid society of evils by using dialogue-baazi and improbable stunts. In Kick, Khan and director Sajid Nadiadwala use the film to throw a light upon India’s healthcare industry, using two characters: the villain and the heroine. The bad guy in Kick is Shiv Gajera, played by Nawazuddin Siddiqui, and he is clearly inspired by The Joker. In The Dark Knight, The Joker dressed up as a nurse at one point. Kick goes a step further and makes Gajera a mysterious millionaire who builds hospitals that are evil, money-sucking establishments (filled with outdated equipment that could potentially kill patients instead of curing them). Khan’s solution to the problem that Gajera poses is quite simple: rob the hospital’s investors, destroy its interiors during the climactic fight and electrocute Gajera. [caption id=“attachment_1641375” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Jacqueline Fernandes plays a psychiatrist Shaina in Salman Khan’s Kick. Image courtesy: Facebook page.[/caption] However, there’s another aspect of healthcare that Kick looks at and that is mental health scene. Khan’s love interest in the film is a psychiatrist named Shaina, played by Jacqueline Fernandez. Fernandez occupies much more screen time than Gajera, which is good news since mental health is one of the areas that need a lot more attention than it gets at present. Here’s a look at what we can learn about psychiatry from Fernandez’s Shaina in Kick. 1. Psychiatrists must see things clearly A psychiatrist must look into people’s souls. No doubt this is why Shaina wears glasses when she’s in her professional mode. It’s worth noting that she’s being romanced, Shaina doesn’t wear glasses, but she puts them on when she is in an introspective mood. Perhaps the glasses help Shaina see her problems with greater clarity. In Bollywood and real life, glasses lend a gravitas to the wearer, which is an added bonus. Gravitas is essential for a mental health professional, especially since they may otherwise be mistaken for a Beyoncé wannabe (see point 4). 2. Know thyself: the motto of mental health professionals You can’t help others with their issues regarding their identity and mental state of mind if you yourself are not well-grounded. This must be why Shaina wears a pendant that spells out her name, “Shaina”, in Hindi. Admittedly this pendant looks vaguely like a collar that one puts on pets, but considering all the roles that a female professional must perform — daughter, doctor, dancer, girlfriend, bimbo — it’s important to know who they really are. Shaina ensures she never loses sight of herself, thanks to her necklace. It’s also possible that Shaina has mental health issues of her own. Perhaps she has a split personality — this would explain why her boyfriend nicknames her “Psycho” — and if that is the case, the necklace is perhaps her touchstone for her own identity. Also, considering how she and Devi Lal (who not only has an addiction to saying the word “kick” but also pretends to be an amnesiac) cosy up, Kick sends the message that mental health concerns need not be an obstacle to finding love. 3. Psychiatrists must be there for their patients, no matter what One cannot stress the importance of mental health professionals being a reliable support system for their patients. Shaina realises this and consequently, when her ex-boyfriend Devi Lal appears at the hospital where she works and she learns he is a patient suffering from amnesia, she doesn’t shy away from taking his case. Instead, she reaches out to help him. Knowing she is the best person to treat him, Shaina lies to her superior at work and takes Devi Lal home, promising to give him the best treatment ever in that less formal setting. At home, however, she is unable to separate the personal from the professional and so strikes a happy balance between the two. Shaina decides she will cure Devi Lal so that he recovers from his amnesia. Then, once he’s remembered their romantic history, she will brutally dump him and marry another man. This way, both the doctor and the spurned lover are happy. 4. Dance is therapy Since Devi Lal is not really suffering from amnesia, there isn’t any need to show him undergoing treatment. However, while he’s deceiving Shaina by pretending to be a patient, the one thing that the good doctor does for Devi Lal is follow him when he goes to a bar. Once there, she wonders out loud what therapy she can give him in this setting. However, the unconventional location doesn’t deter her and after a few drinks (doctors need to loosen up too, you know), Shaina takes off her coat to reveal a barely-there dress. Because it’s important for a patient to know that their doctor is being transparent with them. Then she breaks out in dance, a popular form of therapy espoused by many. Also, as a UN report from 2011 detailed, for every 100,000 people in India, there’s 0.301 psychiatrist available. Clearly the remaining 0.699 part of psychiatrist Shaina hopes to be a Beyoncé lookalike. It’s never a bad idea to have a backup career. 5. Psychiatrists must know when their job is done It’s easy to become emotionally involved with patients and thus become so entangled in their lives that the mental health professional cannot extricate themselves. Despite falling in love with her patient, Shaina doesn’t have that problem in Kick. About two-thirds into the film, once everyone in the film and the audience is aware of Devi Lal having faked his amnesia, Shaina does what a good mental health professional should do when they realise there is no work for them: she disappears. Uncaring of the fact that her storyline has been left dangling or that her disappearance is ridiculously abrupt, Shaina exits Kick. Given the shortage of psychiatrists in India, no doubt there’s a more pressing case that requires her attention.