This Mumbai festival is using art to spark conversations on mental health

A vacuum-sealed man doll, placed inside a plasticky phone cover and visibly overwhelmed by the deafening notifications of Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and X, sits in the hands of a robot. This is one example of the fascinating artworks that Taara Doshi, a 13-year-old from The Cathedral & John Connon School, thought of to depict social media’s all-encompassing grasp over our mental health today.

Doshi started painting at age four. Today, her oil paintings touch upon larger themes and big emotions that people of all ages can relate to: anxiety, depression, substance abuse, body image, bullying, stress, and loneliness. “It took a lot of time to ideate about the elements that would depict each of the themes,” she says, “Dr Marker and I worked closely on fine-tuning these since he first approached me. I first picked a colour palette and then took my ideas to him,” adds Doshi, who has been working on these canvases since May.

This weekend, eight of her paintings will be displayed alongside 10 other paintings—mostly abstract but also some emotive landscapes—created by Dr Zirak Marker, one of the foremost psychiatrists in Mumbai, as part of an immersive experience titled Catharsis. Marker, a psychiatry expert who works with children, adolescents, and families at MPower, is one of those polymaths who has taken his practice to schools via his mental health curriculum and to people, thanks to the two books he’s authored.

At Mumbai’s G-5A, his clinical experience finds a creative outlet as attendees can see the inner workings of acute depression, and what it is like for those struggling. Besides the art, one can also attend the staging of an Indian adaptation of Duncan Macmillan’s Every Brilliant Thing, a one-man show about depression that asks its audiences to be a part of the performance. (Earlier this year, Macmillan’s uplifting story got a bit of a celeb thrust when Daniel Radcliffe decided to play the lead in its Broadway debut.)

The earnest narrative of the play is what makes the theme universal in appeal and easy to travel beyond borders. At its centre is an unnamed narrator who speaks directly to the audience about his experience with depression, starting with his mother’s suicide attempt when he was seven. To make her feel better, he responds by making a list of all the beautifully ordinary things that make life worth living. “It is a difficult story, but it is also, ultimately, a hopeful one,” shares Marker.

The performance is one of the many elements that look at mental health holistically at Catharsis, a two-day event that the doctor has planned and conceptualised with wife Piya to initiate and normalise conversations around mental health. In Mumbai, attendees can earmark 2.5 hours from their weekend to watch art, theatre, and even a poetry and musical recital put together by Stephen Fernandes of Serephonia with students from his academy. “I think art—visual or performing—can communicate beautifully without words. It is the universal language that brings these emotions together,” says Marker, who started dabbling in art to unwind during Covid-19, when a sudden influx of patients led to a gruelling workload.

Marker is hoping to see an audience of both children and their parents at his event, who may return home with a new dinner-time conversation that they had thus far not been able to broach. “We do hope it gives parents the chance to actually have conversations with their children, giving them a platform to start speaking about something,” adds Piya, a former special educator, who is currently practising as a parent coach and writes a weekly parenting column in Mumbai Mirror.

Catharsis is the couple’s debut attempt to reach out to anyone struggling with mental health. For now, part of the proceeds will go towards helping other mental health organisations, such as Manav Foundation, which provides treatment, support, and care to persons affected with a mental illness as well as their caregivers at the psychiatric ward of Masina Hospital.

Catharsis is on for October 10 and 11 at G-5 A, Laxmi Mills Estate, Shakti Mills Lane, Mahalaxmi, Mumbai. Book tickets here