If bullying and petty office politics is taken care of, mental health and work cultures would improve dramatically. Often, senior partners and bosses turn a blind eye to such bullies. Further, coming out into the open about battling depression and anxiety is often looked upon as a sign of weakness or an excuse for not being able to cope.

So much strength in being so vulnerable. If more people spoke as candidly, the world would feel a less scary place. So much light comes from such a dark place. Thank you for sharing.

Hi All. It is actually embarrassing to tell that you are depressed. I am myself fighting somewhere between sanity and depression, every single day. I really wanted to share this, but I guess I cant publicly. I do not have the strength to face the public embarrassment. I work with one of the Big 6/7, one of the bigger ones. I was married early due to family pressures and had a very troubled arranged marriage for 3-4 years, so much so that I made my office my home. I really buried myself in my work, with my team – and things were good at office. My boss liked me, my team enjoyed working with me, my other colleagues knew me as a jovial, approachable and friendly person. But I still wasn’t happy. Deep down, I was very very sad and depressed. I never wanted to go home. At times, I got out of office and still drove around for long before heading home to either sleep of binge on Netflix. The idea was to not face my wife, if she is in the bedroom I am on Netflix, if she is out of the bedroom, then I am sleeping. It was bad, really really bad. Never smoked in my life, but somehow around my marriage I caught a very bad smoking addiction, smoking an entire pack every day. The money was flowing, I had begun to fall into the new normal, wife was comfortable with the money and had nothing for me, I was keeping up with my office and smoking routine – and deep down I was dying every day. Sometimes, people were able to spot that something is wrong. But, like a true blue blooded corporate lawyer, I was able to brush it under the carpet.

Then one day I mustered some long lost courage and decided to end my marriage (this was not the first thought, I wanted to address the situation though it ended up in a divorce). I spoke to my wife over a period of months, and we mutually decided to part ways.

Post my divorce, this girl joined my team. She was very pretty, very sweet, headstrong, balanced, everything you could ask for. As you would have guessed by now, both of us fell for each other. I don’t want to go into the details, but it happened over a course of an entire year. It was love, not just some office romance. She was willing to marry me, and I her. All this was now looking like a real possibility - finally a good and happy life. Her only conditions were that I quit smoking and get out of a personal (and very troublesome and toll taking) situation that I cant describe here. Let’s call it - the Situation. I pretty much gave up smoking over a period of 5-6 months. But we were now having troubles, we were fighting every other day over the Situation. I was unable to get out of the Situation, because of the COVID lockdown (still stuck in it). Every time we broke up (which was happening a lot), I had this strong urge to smoke. Twice I gave in to smoking. I also got to see a new side of hers – crazy angry side – ‘slapped me twice when she saw me smoke’ (no joke, these were real tight slaps - but, as I am good at it, I am brushing it under the carpet). The thing was, she was also going through the same depression that I was, and she was also losing it. She never had these crazy act outs before, but now she was having one every other day. The relationship was getting more and more poisonous everyday. Both of us now wanted out, but both of us are heavily invested in each other – and really really love each other. She faced her side of the problems, convincing her family to marry a divorcee, letting go of several ‘better’ arrange marriage proposals, and several other things. I don’t even know what is holding us together now.

Thanks to all this, I am sinking into something. I don’t even know whether its depression. I am not looking to be judged. I have not even done justice to my story – summarising years in less than 1000 words. I have not done justice to her, in telling her side of the story. I just wanted to say something out loud.

While Chris is a great guy and mental health conversations are important (and many around the world are having these conversations), he can say all of this as he has not been close to a legal document in years. Perks of having a chairman or statesman type of a role at Herbert smith is that you don’t have to do any actual legal work while you can focus on walks, meetings etc. Interesting that unlike many US law firms and even Linklaters for that matter, Herbert smith has never (or may be once) made any Indian lawyer a partner. The diversity status at some of the English firms are truly shocking. I suppose many brown lawyers still don’t meet their “cultural” fit test not having gone to the “right” school or college or having the “right” accent (actual appraisal conversation). Do not underestimate the level of bull shit, patronising behaviour (white man’s burden) and faff that you get at many English firms. There is a glass ceiling for many Indian lawyers at firms like these. Follow the equity and you know the reality of any law firm. Don’t get me wrong - I like Chris. But this is not the whole story. The tragedy is that some Indian law firms behave in the same colonial manner. Indian lawyers in India or elsewhere deserve better treatment.