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The Lie Every Indian Boy Grows Up With

We grew up learning to choke back tears

Photo by ARTO SURAJ on Unsplash

Stoicism is killing us. Here is how we stop pretending we are fine.

I grew up in rooms where feelings were a private business. Boys were told to “man up,” to keep quiet, to not burden the family. If you cried, you were weak. If you were anxious, you were “overthinking.”

Let us be honest, most of us have faced this. It is not rare at all.

But that cultural shrug has a cost. When men are trained to hide pain, to perform toughness, their suffering goes invisible. It does not disappear. It piles up. And in India, the consequences are brutal and measurable.

The numbers that do not lie

India’s suicide figures are alarming and rising. Official data and recent analyses show rising suicide rates across the country, and a large majority of recorded suicides are men. This is not a social footnote, it is a public-health emergency.

Men die by suicide far more than women, and young men are particularly affected. These deaths are often linked to job loss, debt, family pressure, and untreated mental illness. Yet help-seeking among men remains low. That gap of high harm, low help is the clearest sign that stoicism…