Nov 07 2025 to Nov 07 2025 6:30 p.m.

Where

Bangalore International Centre

7 4th Main Rd, Stage 2, Domlur 560071

Event Description

Conversations around mental health often remain confined to whispers, held back by silence, stigma, and fear. Yet when lived experiences are shared, they open windows into understanding, empathy, and change. This session reflects on how personal storytelling can transform pain into purpose, inviting us to see resilience and healing in new, deeply human ways.

Featuring Neha Kirpal and Dr. Nandini Murali, editors of Homecoming: Mental Health Journeys of Resilience, Healing and Wholeness (Westland Books), the discussion brings together voices of women from across urban India navigating a wide spectrum of mental health conditions. Through their journeys, marked by courage, vulnerability, and renewal, they challenge the idea of brokenness and reimagine what it means to be whole.

Presented by:

Speakers

Kavita Arora
Child & Adolescent Psychiatrist
Dr Kavita Arora is a child and adolescent psychiatrist with over twenty-five years of practice experience and is a co-founder of Children First. She has grown up with a parent who had mental illness and multiple medical disorders for whom she eventually became a carer. She is also part of the founding cohort of the IMHA. Committed to early intervention and inclusive mental healthcare, she has helped shape a multidisciplinary, indigenous model for neurodivergent children and families with diverse developmental needs.

Sidrah Naiyer
State Lead, Indus Action, Uttar Pradesh
Sidrah Naiyer is a quiet witness to the ways systems fail—and how people still survive them. Born and raised in Bahraich, Uttar Pradesh, she has lived with depression for over a decade, learning to navigate silence as both a shield and weight. Her work, which spans rural classrooms, mental health circles and government rooms, is always asking the question: what does dignity look like here? Sidrah believes that vulnerability is a form of leadership, and that the smallest truths, when spoken aloud, can move mountains. She works and hopes in the spaces where pain meets policy and where care begins.

Pheroza J Godrej
Art Historian, PhD in Ancient Indian Culture
Dr Pheroza J. Godrej is an art historian and holds a PhD in ancient Indian culture. She founded the Cymroza Art Gallery and authored various publications and curated highly acclaimed exhibitions for leading national and international museums. She is chairperson of the Museum Society of Mumbai. She is trustee of the Dr Bhau Daji Lad Museum, Impact India Foundation and the Sea Cadet Corp India, and also serves as a director of the Asia Society India Centre. Dr. Godrej is on the board of the Oxford India Centre for the Sustainable Development International Advisory Council. She is an ardent promoter of the Cornelia Sorabji Programme, and supports the Cornelia Sorabji Scholarship at Somerville College, Oxford.

Aparna Piramal Raje
Writer, Speaker & Educator
Aparna Piramal Raje is an award-winning writer, speaker, facilitator and educator. Her bestselling book, Chemical Khichdi (Penguin, 2022), blends memoir and self-help to share her twenty-year journey with bipolar disorder. It was shortlisted for the AutHer Awards and acclaimed for its authenticity. Aparna’s ‘Head Office’ column in Mint profiled over 100 CEOs and inspired her first book, Working Out of the Box (Random House, 2015). She has written for the Financial Times and is a popular keynote speaker and LEGO Serious Play facilitator. A former CEO, she studied philosophy, politics and economics at Oxford and earned her MBA from Harvard Business School.