Illustration/Ravi Jadhav

In all my growing up years, the only word I ever heard, in relation to mental health, was the pejorative 'pagalakhana'. The first time I heard of someone going to a therapist — someone I knew, not someone in a Woody Allen film — was in the late 1990s. It was almost exotic. But it was an incredibly appealing thought, that one could actually try to heal one's emotional or hurting self. When I suggested it to a friend going through a hard time, she stopped talking to me. She thought I was unsympathetic and implying she was 'mad.'