Indian Girl Loses Speech After Snub in TV Contest

Shinjini Sengupta of West Bengal in eastern India is an appalling victim of the pressure piled on children these days.

The 16-yr-old girl cannot speak or move, after a public drubbing she received in a dance competition in a TV reality show.

She has since been shifted to Bangalore in southern India for treatment in the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences (NIMHANS).

After the May 19 public chiding, she became depressed and forgot her dialogues in her regular TV serial. She soon lost her speech and finally, could not move her limbs. She was flown to Bangalore Friday evening.

Shinjini Sengupta is a class XI student of a reputed school in Calcutta, capital of West Bengal.

She was in class VII when she won a prize for dance in school. The dancing bug remained with her since then. Around two years ago she started performing at dance shows and in TV dance competitions.

Her first film ‘Bar Asbe Ekhuni’ is scheduled for release next August.

Only when she seemed to have forgotten her dialogue during the shoot of a TV serial, a few days after the reality show debacle, did her parents realize that something was wrong with her.

“The director and actors were a bit surprised since she hadn’t behaved like that before. We thought she was playing funny, just out of pique….that didn’t seem to be the case we realized later,” said her mother Sibani.

The girl managed the shoot that day all right, but that was the last time that she appeared before the camera. Shinjini even refused to watch episodes of the dance contest where she had appeared.

She was taken to a psychiatrist and some medicines were given, but they only made her drowsy. There was no improvement in her condition.

Shinjini didn’t break into tears like some of the other participants after being scolded by the judges. “On returning home, she said she felt like singing loudly. I asked her if she was upset. She just said that she had fought hard to hold back her tears. After that day, she was not her usual self,” Sibani Sengupta, Shinjini’s mother, said.

She almost stopped eating and slept for most part of the day. When awake, she listened to music. “The doctors here have not been able to diagnose her problem. She cannot speak or express herself. An MRI and a CT scan have been done, but we still don’t know what she is suffering from,” said Sibani Sengupta, Shinjini’s mother. Till three days ago, she would write if she needed something. Now, she has stopped that, too, Times of India reports.

As she stopped eating altogether, she was taken to a nursing home and later shifted to Calcutta Medical Research Institute. After five days at the hospital, the family decided to take her to Bangalore for treatment.

Psychiatrists say that Shinjini’s case, though an extreme one, is not rare. “Quite often we come across such cases. Depression is one of the factors behind a number of illnesses. Shinjini was perhaps biologically vulnerable,” said Dr.Debashish Roy.

Her parents were also anxious to ward off any criticism that they might have done anything to pressurize their daughter.

“Being our only child we never stopped her from doing what she wanted to do. Education was our first priority. If she could manage to learn dance without hampering her studies we were okay with it. Now, I don’t know what we will do. All parents should learn a lesson from us,” said D K Sengupta, Shinjini’s father.

Meanwhile, ETV Bangla has said that the reality show In question was a commissioned one and hence the producers of the show had to take the responsibility for the plight of the girl, not channel itself.

Source-Medindia
GPL/L