Opinion The Third Edit: In Bengal, a note of hope

Long before friendships became a click and a swipe away — easily gained, superficially experienced and just as easily forsaken — there was once the comfort of letters in which one poured one’s heart out to a trusted confidante. The mailman was the conduit and when the response arrived, it brought with it the promise of a safe space. Those days of letter-writing might be in the past but the mental-health crisis in India, especially among the young, shows that the need for safe spaces has only grown stronger over time. For many young people, hidden under the weight of everyday life, lies a world of emotional turmoil that they are too young, too scared, or too ashamed to articulate. A school in Jalpaiguri, West Bengal, has taken a quiet step in addressing this crisis. It has set up the mon peon-er bag — a wooden letterbox that is fast becoming a repository of secrets at the government-sponsored Fanindra Deb Institution, where children from pre-primary to Class IV, mostly aged between five and 10 years, share their hopes, confessions, and deepest insecurities, often anonymously.

Implemented as part of a mental-health support programme, in the month since its inauguration, the initiative has seen nearly a hundred notes in which students have spoken of all that they hold within — hopes for more games classes, distress over disputes between parents, longing for a parent who works in a different state or hurt against one who chooses work over family. The school plans to reach out to families, particularly of students grappling with parental conflict, to counsel them into negotiating domestic turbulence better. But more than anything else, what the simple act has done is to empower pupils to speak up — knowing that their voices won’t go unheeded.

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In a world that often rushes past the struggles of its youngest, the mon peon-er bag is a reminder that even the smallest gesture can spark profound change. In the vulnerability shared and the hope received seeds of resilience and healing are sown, one note at a time.