Spring Semester 09: Help First
English

This episode talks about drug use.
If it touches your own life, support
details are below this video.
Bhai, enough. I'm
already a traffic signal.
Red, green... you're missing yellow.
Not on the guitar. The
guitar is a no-Holi zone.
You look better, bhai.
Than January.
I'm sleeping. Mostly.
Mostly?
Joseph says 'mostly' counts.
Colours end at twelve hundred hours!
After that, bath, lunch, normal life!
Sir, your face!
Negative. Very careful.
Stand up. All three.
You think I can't smell it?
On Holi. In my hostel.
Names. Tomorrow, the police.
And your parents.
Dev has been seeing a
counsellor since January.
Tonight he wonders who else will find out.
Three students. Behind the cycle shed.
On Holi night.
In January I waited, ma'am.
Your way. Now I do it mine.
My recommendation. Police, today.
Parents, today.
And while we're at it, the girls'
hostel gates close at eight.
Sir, nobody from the girls'
hostel was behind the cycle shed.
Prevention, Tanvi. Prevention.
May I ask the question I asked in January?
You will ask it anyway.
What do we want to
happen to these students?
Same answer as January.
I want them safe. And I want them to stop.
So do I. Which of these keeps them safe?
And which makes them hide?
Can I draw? I'm better with a marker.
Who's selling, where it came from:
that's the institution's process.
Police too, if needed.
What these three need is care.
Farah and me. And nobody tells us
anything unless it stays private.
If students think we're a branch of the
police station, the ones who need us most
stop coming first.
And the parents?
If a life is at risk,
I'll call them myself.
Otherwise, we ask the student first.
And the curfew, Prakash ji.
If a girl were being threatened, would
earlier curfews make her come to us, or
hide it?
She'd hide it. And she'd hide
where she was when it happened.
Same rules. For all hostels.
For now.
Thank you, sir.
Sir. One minute?
If this is about the cricket
ball, I don't want to know.
It's not the ball, sir.
They're saying the warden will get
a list from the Wellness Centre.
Everyone who's been.
Who's saying that?
Everyone.
I told him it stays with Joseph, sir.
Was I wrong?
I went in January. On my own.
About the smoking. If
there's a list, I'm on it.
If they call my father, it's
the morning bus to Dehradun.
I'm not going to Joseph tomorrow.
Better if nothing's written down.
I'm not writing this down.
Did anyone actually
tell you there's a list?
Nobody's told me anything, sir.
That's the problem.
Give me one night to read the policy.
And don't skip tomorrow.
He'll go, sir. I'll walk him.
And not one line about a student who asks.
Is that chai a bribe?
A request. I read all fourteen pages.
Nothing for a student who comes forward.
Nobody reads the whole policy.
That's how it got like this.
Okay. Write: whoever asks
for help gets care first.
Asking for help is never, by
itself, a reason for discipline.
What they tell us stays with us.
Unless a life is at risk.
And selling is a separate matter.
Good. Now the hard part.
Prakash sir.
Prakash sir.
You've read that form four times.
It's one page.
Everyone's signed. If I don't, it
looks like I'm hiding something.
Are you?
I take medicine for anxiety.
Prescribed. Since college.
What if it shows up and goes in my file?
Come. Farah explains forms
better than forms do.
It's voluntary. You can say no, and
nothing happens to your fellowship or your
place here.
It's confidential. And
prescriptions go here, on the back.
That's on the back?
In small print. Joseph
explained it in the hostels.
Nobody did in the labs.
So I'm not in trouble.
You're a scholar who takes her medicine.
That's called looking after yourself.
Told you. Better than the form.
The UN's drugs office and the World Health
Organization have set out international
standards on preventing drug use.
Scare tactics, information-only lectures
and talks by people who once used
drugs show no benefit.
Random drug testing in schools
is linked to negative outcomes.
What helps is quieter: brief
one-to-one conversations, five to
fifteen minutes long, with modest effects.
India's Mental Healthcare Act counts
conditions linked to alcohol and drug use
as mental illness, with rights
to care and to confidentiality.
And the drug law's section 64A protects
people charged with personal use from
prosecution, if they seek treatment
voluntarily and complete it.
It is rarely used. In 2024,
Himachal Pradesh's police chief said
it had never been used in his state.
From 2026–27, new students at IITs, IIMs
and one central university are being
offered voluntary, confidential drug
screening.
Reporting on the plan raised questions
about privacy and prescribed medicines,
and pointed to weak evidence
that testing reduces use.
One question first.
The screening results: who sees them?
The circular says 'the
wellness committee'.
That is us.
That includes me. I don't want
to see my batchmates' results.
Then we write it down.
Counsellors only. Never
in a student's file.
Not even the Chief Warden?
Especially not the Chief Warden.
Hmph. Noted.
Joseph and I drafted this, sir.
Four lines.
'Asking for help is never, by
itself, a reason for discipline.'
When I was a cadet, a boy in
our unit was caught drinking.
They sent him home that same night.
Nobody asked him why.
He never came back to college.
I was nineteen. I thought
that was discipline.
I have believed it my whole life.
Help first. Then rules.
Shortest speech you've ever made, sir.
And the last one today.
Dismissed.
Four minutes late, other one.
That's a record.
I nearly didn't come.
Nearly is fine. Come in.
Try this week: read your campus's drug
policy, and find what it says happens
to a student who asks for help.
And here is a phrase to keep.
Make asking for help the safe choice.
This episode talked about drug use.
Support details and sources
are below this video.
See you in week ten.