Mysterious Maladies of Mind: Exploring Depression through Pathographic Standpoint in Gayathri Ramprasad’s Shadows in the Sun

Abstract

The article critiques the structural barriers and inaccessibility in health care followed by the torments of the psychiatric system through the critical anatomy of the biomedical, social, cultural, and political contemptuousness associated with mental disorders in India. By adopting the qualitative approach and critical discourse analysis, the article studies Gayathri Ramprasad’s memoir Shadows in the Sun to explore the representation of a depressed mind in the process— from the onset of the symptoms till recovery, followed by finding a way to live with and manage depression by hiding behind the façade of normalcy, in a milieu that is oblivious and nescient on the issues of mental illness. By emphasizing personal experiences with depression, the study argues that Ramprasad writes this illness narrative by presenting the numerous shades of a depressed mind that is consistently episodic— from a mind with a disorder to feeling normal, to losing in oblivion, to finding a cure in the holistic wellness engaging mind, body, and soul. The study poses depression as a political and cultural epiphenomenon as much as it is a biological anomaly by foregrounding how depression leads to disability and discrimination, including the relationship between depression and gender.