‘Rent A Boyfriend’ App Claims To Let You Hire a Male Companion To ‘Cure’ Depression For As Less As Rs 300

If you thought the world cannot get bizarre any further, the headline must have already proved you wrong. Yes! We are living in a world where you can now *brace yourselves* rent a boyfriend to 'CURE' depression. Nope! We are not even kidding, someone really thought of this. So Rent A Boy Friend aka RABF app, website: www.rentabf.in, was launched on Friday in Pune and Mumbai. With a simple google search, you can find its website and other social media accounts that will leave you speechless. And well, we are more concerned about the 'CURE DEPRESSION' part. They have legit put up pictures of a few men, their details and you get to know their prices later on. You have to now fix an appointment and these men who are apparently going to 'cure' depression, disclose their rates only when you fill in your complete details.

Their 'about us' section reads: 'World is filled with plenty of “interesting” entertainment businesses such as maid cafes, owl cafes or robot restaurants. This time it’s not about an interesting cafe or restaurant but it is about new trend, “Rental Boy | Friend!” which is going to be Introduced in INDIA by KP24 United. RABF ( Rent A Boy|Friend) invites you to Register as a boy|friend. It is an opportunity to travel,relax,outdoor fun activities,casual cafe visit, brunch-lunch-dinner,etc. So, (Models, Celebrity, Aam Aadmi) must be friendly, outgoing, exciting, energetic and possess good communication skills. The great thing is you can CHILL and also get PAID for it. So, overall its a fine platform to generate a source of income. If this sounds like something you would be interested in pursuing, then you may Register as a boy|friend.'

This is how their main screen looks like: 

The man behind this venture, 29-year-old Kaushal Prakash believes that this app will both fight depression and provide employment for the males (because women who??). An Instagram post says, 'RABF Service will be available to both Male & Female for the contracted time in city of Mumbai/Pune. The service will be purely platonic in nature. RABF is a platform which will help a nation to fight DEPRESSION, provide EMPLOYMENT (Males), Give a hope to a person who can relieve their life more confidently & happily.'

Take a look at the post put up by RABF on Instagram.

While we have an absolutely neutral take, it is still very difficult for us to ignore the fact that this venture is straightaway belittling the efforts and education of the various psychologists we have in our country and the claim to 'cure' depression by merely renting a boyfriend simply doesn't sound right. According to DNA, RABF also provides with 'psychiatric consultation' for which you have to pay 500 rupees for a15-20 minutes of interaction with people at their call centre whom they call "professional psychiatrists". Did you see the price you are to pay? What about the people who are poor and depressed, if they really think about progressing India? However, on a different note, the government of India and various other non-profit organisations have umpteen toll-free helplines that you can call to if you feel low or suicidal thoughts cross your mind.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Aug 27, 2018 06:02 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).