In a city that often puts mental health on the backburner, we should take heart in the small but significant number of initiatives held through the weekend to mark World Suicide Prevention Day, which fell on Sunday.

The theme for this year's Suicide Prevention Day was 'Take a minute, change a life'. The theme points to the importance of communication in today's world. It is open channels of communication that can dispel the darkness and despair characteristic of depression. It is communication that will give people the first inkling of whether the person you are speaking to, be it friend or family member, is dangerously on the brink and needs urgent professional intervention. Suicide prevention awareness can help banish wrong notions like 'those who talk about committing suicide will never go through with it'. That, as experts will say, is the wrong approach.