A book was launched recently at Oxford Book Store, Park Street, in Kolkata. It has been written by Mithu Chakraborti, and it is titled Anatomy of Misery, Part 1: Men's Misery. It was reported in yesterday's edition of The Telegraph, the article ticklishly titled 'Recentring Suffering'. As the writer said, 'I think it is... important to recognise the societal and emotional pressures faced by men... their emotional needs are seldom taken into consideration'. Hear, hear!
I should like every one of my readers to go through the entire article for themselves (The Telegraph, August 5, 2026, t2, p.5), but I want to quote some lines from it here. The reporter says 'The book, structured as a work of narrative non-fiction and popular psychology (whatever that means - SC), comprises twelve interconnected stories. In these, a multitude of men find themselves facing various conflicts owing to the stereotypical expectations and burdens inflicted upon them by a ... culture that does not acknowledge men's need for emotional support and expression. Themes of men's loneliness, emotional isolation, domestic abuse (so at last some people are beginning to admit that men are abused too, ha ha ha!-SC), the pressures of being a provider and the personal costs incurred by men in a society that expects them to be silent are the focus of these stories'. Oindrila Dutt, arts curator and one of the guests at the book launch, added, 'This book reminds us that it is high time for us to extend equal consideration for men's and women's miseries in society (good to hear that such equality, it is now being admitted, was not accorded for a long time! - SC). It is a crucial reminder that we need to address the pressures faced by men who have been betrayed (so now we can openly say that we are often betrayed too, huh? - SC), but sadly think that they are at fault.'
Well, AT LAST! Countless generations of men, many of them nice, good, responsible, hardworking, honorable men, have worked, suffered and died in silence because they had always been told that men do not, must not, admit and lament and ask for amelioration of their suffering (I keep remembering Harihar Ray in Pather Panchali, along with many other such characters real and fictional). My generation suffered a double whammy - the rise of a particularly sick, strident, one-eyed, obsessive 'feminism' that screamed at us all our lives that it is only women's 'right' (for want of a better word) to suffer and whine about their suffering, and to keep on pillorizing us men for all of it being our fault, no matter how many of us tried, however hard, to make life good and happy for them: if some men are awful, every one of us much bear the guilt and go through life hanging our heads in shame, while being completely shouted down and blithely ignored if we sometimes mumbled 'Well, we suffer too, you know, and it is not always our fault; maybe we deserve a little attention and sympathy and consideration sometimes, too?'
But let that be. One human lifespan is too small against the backdrop of history to notice much significant change anyway, and maybe the wheel is turning the right way already before my eyes? I wrote not too long ago about a woman who is vigorously running a Men's Rights Association, and here is another woman who has written a book like this. Maybe I shall see some change for the better before I die? Maybe some women will again begin to say that men are equally human too, and women can be bad humans too, or at least have a lot of faults and failings which they should do something about? Maybe, God willing, some more women will even begin to think, like Ms. Chakraborti, that we men have been getting a raw deal for a nastily long time, and say so in public for all to hear?
