Returning home to Kerala just in time to be locked indoors with the rest of the country, I've spent my days scrolling through headlines ranging from the horrifying to the tragic. Somehow, none felt more personally jolting than the death of 'Sushant Singh Rajput'. The national uproar that followed, loud and righteous as it was, meant the realities of mental health got lost in a cross-fire of misinformation.

Depression and I are old friends. She's been my most loyal companion for nearly three decades. I've forgotten a time before she and I shared a home, a heart, and a brain. But we don't have the healthiest of relationships, she and I. How could we after the multiple occasions on which she's tried to kill me, and I was seconds away from letting her? I doubt she's thrilled that I attempt to medicate her out of existence every day. Or beg, plead, kick, SCREAM for her to leave me alone. To leave me in peace. At least for a day. A week, if she's feeling generous. Sometimes she obliges. But we both know it can't last. She has nowhere to go. She lives within me. In my...