Causes and cure for depression that DP will never tell you but I will

(What DP knows about depression, man! I have known depression even before she was born. In fact, many girls in Bangalore had their first depression when her dad, the handsome badminton player Prakash Padukone got hitched. I was one of those girls.)

Cause for most recent depression: Son calls from Bombay and says he’s feeling a little under the weather. I offer to bake a banana cake for him and send it across. Kind friend Rimi Das says she’s going to Bombay so she can carry it for him. So far so good.

Then tragedy started striking. My oven conked out. Kind friend no. 2 Frida Mistry said bring near-rotten bananas, I have loads of choco chips, we’ll bake in my house. So off I trudged there. We followed the recipe and put the thing in the oven. We (over) enthusiastically baked two cakes.

They came out looking like Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

I got depression, called son and cried (almost). He said it’s ok amma, it’s your love that matters, send it across. Depression didn’t go. I’m telling you, it doesn’t go as easily as DP says it does. It lingers, it gnaws, it silently kills (almost).

Cure for depression: Pull out a saree that’s neither peeco’d nor fall’d. It was originally meant for an ex-maid who didn’t get it because she pinched my gold earrings. Wear it with random, loose-fitting blouse, go to Rimi’s house to hand over the wretched cake, request her to take pics of the saree, post it.

Ta-da! Depression gaayab