Unbreak My heart A new ‘breakup’ helpline service promises to pull out all the stops to mend your broken heart and help you get over your ex. Shikha Kumar signs up for it to find out whether the service lives up to its tall claims

Unbreak My heart

A new ‘breakup’ helpline service promises to pull out all the stops to mend your broken heart and help you get over your ex. Shikha Kumar signs up for it to find out whether the service lives up to its tall claims

To keep you away from soul crushing, revenge-seeking, and self-pitying emotions, and to help you bounce back in one piece.’ When I first stumble across this vision statement on the website for ‘Breakup Helpline’, I am fairly amused. The website offers services like counselling, wish-fulfilling and grooming sessions — all aimed at helping the heartbroken move on with their life. The website content was... creative, replete with tips to get over your ex, featured articles attempting to demystify relationships, and a video of Katy Perry’s latest song Part Of Me (about a breakup). Since I had just gotten out of a long relationship, and resultantly belonged to the heartbreak club, this seemed right up my alley. Drowning my sorrows in ice-cream was not making me any thinner. Reaching for my phone to text or call the ex-boyfriend at every vulnerable moment was not doing me any good either. Having been with him for four years, it was difficult to resist talking to someone who knows everything about you. The website required a registration to get the remedial process in motion. Within an hour, I get an email from a ‘Side Effect Manager’. The email posed questions about hobbies, my job, relationship details, and the reasons for the breakup. I filled them in on my story. Somehow, venting to a third person, and in this case an unnamed entity, is better than talking to a friend. For one, friends are biased and always take your side. Also, the bad-mouthing about your ex can only give temporary relief. In the email that followed, my Side-Effect Manager gave me a perspective of the situation, including deciphering what could be on my ex’s mind. The advice was rational, if predictable (‘reduce contact with your ex’), and laden with praises for me. A self-esteem boosting measure, perhaps. The email included frivolous suggestions of writing down on a piece of paper what I like about myself, what I would like change and what I was doing to make amends. When I mentioned that I would love to learn baking someday, they sent me a list of baking classes in the city that I can enrol in. (Thank you, Google). So far, the only thing that had made an impression was the promptness of their emails. If they didn’t hear from me for a day, they would write back. The emails that followed were casual, asking me about my day, recommending movies and things to do. The thing about breakups is, you always cluck your tongue and sympathise with friends who go through it, never knowing that you will also be in the same situation one day, even if everything seems hunky-dory. Especially when your boyfriend initiates the breakup, you feel like you got the raw end of the deal. And one can always blame the movies for embedding the concept of happy endings in your subconscious. After my breakup, the only question on my mind was ‘Where’s my happy ending?’ On a day when I was feeling particularly low, I wrote to them about my feelings and how it was really difficult to cut off contact with the ex. In their reply, they suggested that I catch a gig at The Comedy Store or watch lots of Tom and Jerry (cartoons, really?) as the key is to do lots of stupid things and thereby distract myself. Okay, point taken. They also offered to give me company if I had no one to go with. The face behind it all Since there is only so much interaction you can have with a person you haven’t seen, I set up a meeting with my Side Effect Manager. I still didn’t know whether the person was male or female, but I had a feeling it would be a woman given the detailed nature of the emails. So I was caught off-guard when I met Ankit, the face behind all those emails, over coffee. The meeting is the best part of the course, as advice given over a face-to-face interaction works much better than that given otherwise. Ankit is the brains behind Breakup Helpline and he tells me the story of his breakup, that inspired him to come up with this concept. His ex-girlfriend cheated on him, leaving him disillusioned. Even though she admitted her mistake, for Ankit, it was simple – once a cheater, always a cheater. Midway through our conversation, he tells me that I need to smile more often, and the comment makes me do just that. He lightens the mood by telling me the things they have done in the past to make their clients happy like hand-written letters, recording a dance sequence and sending the video, singing lullabies and sending a kite to someone in Ahmedabad who felt like flying one. “One of our clients also sent us a request asking us to find her a man,” he says with a laugh. Needless to say, they told her that they weren’t a dating service. Breakup Helpline’s four week counselling programme includes Skype sessions, email and face-to-face interactions, grooming sessions and any outdoor activities requested by the client. While the email and Skype sessions are free, the other services cost Rs2,500. The verdict? At 2,500 bucks, the counselling is much cheaper when compared to professional psychologists who charge exorbitantly by the hour. The approach of the folks at Breakup Helpline is friendlier, definitely a winning factor. While I’m not totally blown away by the advice they dish out, if you need someone to share your grief with, without burning a hole in your pocket, Breakup Helpline is your best bet!