Dr. Shyamanta Das

Born in Assam. A part of India. But it took me long to understand the true spirit of the Independence Day. Being from a part of India which always felt alien from the mainstream. In my state Assam, there is all the time call for boycott, bandh on this day by various organisations. During my junior residency in New Delhi, do I have the first taste of freedom when people used to fly kites to celebrate. A jolly festival. Gradually I started to absorb myself in the mainland. These things acted on my mind more while I choose psychiatry as my profession. It also makes me feel the same way because of the universality of mental illness as well as uniformity in its treatment. As a psychiatrist, diagnosing and treating patients with mental illness was part and parcel of my work. Apart from that, I took up research activities. Like in life itself, first my publications were regional (Eastern Journal of Psychiatry, Bengal Journal of Private Psychiatry, Andhra Pradesh Journal of Psychological Medicine), thereafter national (Delhi Journal of Psychiatry, Indian Journal of Behavioural Sciences, Indian Journal of Psychosocial Sciences, Annals of Indian Academy of Neurology, Indian Journal of Psychiatry), and finally international (Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, Asian Journal of Psychiatry, Psychopathlogy, Primary Care Companion for CNS Disorders). Academics in the medical colleges for both undergraduate and postgraduate continued side by side. With time what became close to my heart, my ‘ikigai’ is editing journal. From the inaugural issue in 2010 of Dysphrenia, renamed Open Journal of Psychiatry & Allied Sciences (OJPAS®), I am the Editor-in-Chief till now for the last 13 years. Also, joined the editorial board of Kerala Journal of Psychiatry and later joined as Assistant Editor of Indian Journal of Psychiatry. I wish to pursue these activities intensely with passion from a platform where such it encouraged. None better than here, in the ‘Mealth’.