In the First World War, it was called "shell shock". In the Second World War, it was "combat fatigue". Now, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) strikes closer to home than ever before.
Regular news reports of bomb blasts in Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan increasingly escape our attention even as similar tragedies hit our own neighbourhoods.
Most recently, the serial blasts in Jaipur not only left 65 people dead and about 200 injured, but also left a greater number of victims grappling with psychological trauma.
In 2003 in the Pakistan Journal of Medical Sciences, researchers reported that 82 per cent of such survivors fulfilled the criteria of PTSD. Evidently it is far from uncommon to find survivors and witnesses both subconsciously fighting the psychological fallout from such incidents, but do they have help at hand?
The relief and rehabilitation packages announced for blast victims and their families can only do so much. Rajasthan's parliamentary affairs minister Rajendra Singh Rathore, meanwhile, laid separate emphasis on ensuring education for children, marriage of girls and cash relief for relatives of the deceased.
A show of concern from the government and the political class at the hospitals where survivors are recovering could, perhaps, lift their spirits
