"I thought of jumping from moving car": Sivaramakrishnan on how racism scars led to depression Former India leg-spinner Laxman Sivaramakrishnan has shared a deeply personal account of his mental health struggles, linking his period of severe depression to years of racial discrimination and colour-based remarks. During his time as a cricket commentator, Sivaramakrishnan described feeling so overwhelmed that he “didn’t want to see himself in the mirror” and feared he “was going to die.” He recounted how his routine collapsed during the IPL held in the UAE during the Covid-19 lockdown, when he would shut himself indoors, lose track of time, and rely on alcohol to cope. “I would have a couple of drinks and go to sleep because I could not bear anything. Whenever I was awake, I thought I was going to die,” he said. Sivaramakrishnan detailed the haunting moments when he felt suicidal, including instances where he considered jumping from a moving car while traveling in Dubai. “Sometimes when we were traveling in Dubai, there’s no speed limit. If the vehicle went very fast, something in my mind would tell me to just open the door and jump out. Somehow, something stopped me from doing anything silly,” he recalled. Sleep became a torment, with recurring hallucinations that left him terrified. “You close your eyes, you see images that you can’t imagine. All very frightening. You open your eyes, there’s nothing. But you’re so tired that you want to sleep. You close your eyes for a while, then again, open your eyes. So there goes your sleep.” He admitted that alcohol worsened his condition, trapping him in a cycle of despair. The former spinner also revealed how racism affected his career, even during his 23-year stint as a commentator.#laxman_sivaramakrishnan #desmond_haynes #malcolm_marshall #vijay_amritraj #gordon_greenidge
