মন খারাপ
mon kharap
Provenance: Illustrative wording created by the editorial team; not participant testimony.
Contributor's meaning
The state when the mind and heart are "bad" or not well — a heaviness, a low mood, a dimming of the inner self. It's not just sadness. Something in your chest settles like rain clouds before they break.
Mental health connection
Describes low mood, emotional heaviness, mild to moderate depression-like states. Unlike clinical terms, it lives in everyday speech and is used across all ages. A child can have মন খারাপ because a friend didn't come to play. An elder can have মন খারাপ for months without a named reason.
Safe messaging for media
- Use the expression in its stated context; do not present it as a diagnosis or universal translation.
- Avoid describing a person by a stigmatizing term unless the person self-identifies that way and the wording is necessary.
- For suicide-related coverage, avoid method detail, sensational headlines, and single-cause explanations; include help-seeking information.
- Link to this entry’s evidence limits and distinguish contributor wording from analyst interpretation.
Background
মন (mon) means both mind and heart in Bengali — there is no clean separation. খারাপ (kharap) means bad, broken, not working properly. Together they express something deeply felt but not necessarily visible.
Context of use
Used freely across genders, ages, and social settings. It normalises distress without pathologising it. Parents say it, children say it, the phrase appears in poetry, film, and everyday conversation.
Age & gender differences
Appears equally across genders. Older generations may express it more stoically; younger people may use it more openly online.
What is uncertain
Difficult to translate exactly. "Sad" is too light. "Depressed" is too clinical. The English phrase "heart is heavy" comes close but misses the mind-component.
Translations
"Mind-bad" — a low mood or emotional heaviness, the mind and heart not being well.
1 machine translation draft withheld
Unreviewed wording is not published as part of this entry. Researchers may inspect the draft and request human review.
Estado en que la mente y el corazón están "mal" — tristeza, pesadez emocional.
Perspectives from different contexts
Perspectives are shown side by side. Similarity does not mean equivalence. No one perspective speaks for an entire culture.
We use the same phrase but the feeling goes deeper — মন খারাপ in Sylheti often carries a sense of longing, of someone or something being absent.
Very familiar. In Kolkata we use it constantly — it's the mildest form of emotional acknowledgment. If you say মন ভালো নেই (my mind is not good), it's slightly stronger.
The closest I have is "feeling down" but that doesn't carry the same weight of the heart-mind together.