"Bodies Moving, Minds Drowning": Startup Founder Reacts To Mental Health Crisis In India

Prafull Billore, founder of MBA Chai Wala, has highlighted a pressing issue in India that's affecting people's personal and professional lives. In a recent post on X (formerly Twitter), Billore pointed out that marriages are falling apart and relationships feel suffocating. He wrote that despite economic growth, people are struggling with stagnant careers and a lack of purpose, failing marriages and strained relationships, financial stress, and mental health issues like anxiety and depression.

"I travel across India and meet hundreds of people. Rich ones. Struggling ones. Young ones. Middle-aged ones. And the most common thing I see isn't ambition. It isn't poverty either," Billore wrote on X.

"It's quiet suffering."

"Marriages falling apart. Relationships that feel like prisons. Work that drains the soul. Debt that never ends. Businesses that won't grow. Finances that spiral," he said.

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See the post here

I travel across India and meet hundreds of people.

Rich ones. Struggling ones. Young ones. Middle-aged ones.

And the most common thing I see isn't ambition. It isn't poverty either.

It's quiet suffering.

Marriages falling apart. Relationships that feel like prisons. Work that…

— Prafull Billore (@_prafullbillore) March 28, 2026

What's the root cause?

According to Billore, the reason behind the crisis is a growing emotional disconnect in society. People are physically present but mentally absent, leading to a sense of isolation.

"Careers going nowhere. Bodies moving. Minds drowning. Obesity. Tension. Anxiety. Depression. Nobody talks about it. Everyone is experiencing it," he wrote.

"We are a society that is physically the most present - and mentally the most absent. Sitting in the same room as their family. Gone somewhere else inside their head."

"The real crisis isn't in the economy. It's happening inside people - silently, heavily, every single day."

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Social Media Reaction

The post went viral with over 23,200 views and hundreds of likes. Online users took to the comment section to share their point of view. "The real tragedy is that most people have already decided their life is supposed to feel this way. They've normalised the suffocation so well that peace feels like a luxury they're not allowed to have," one user wrote.

"We've traded presence for proximity. Being in the same room is no longer the same as being together. It's like we're all running on 1% battery, trying to power a life that requires 100% just to break even," wrote another.

"The economy gets dashboards and headlines. The inside of a person gets silence and 'you'll be fine'. That asymmetry is itself part of the problem," a third wrote.