Dr Alok Sarin MD is a practicing psychiatrist at the Sitaram Bhartia Institute in New Delhi. A medical graduate and postgraduate in psychiatry from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, he has been in active clinical practice for the last 25 years. He has been an active member of the Indian Psychiatric Society and has written and published widely. Apart from clinical practice, he has been active in areas of psychosocial rehabilitation, in involving the larger community in public discourses on mental health and disorder. He is the Vice-President of The Richmond Fellowship Society, a voluntary organisation working with chronic psychiatric illness, and is the conceptualiser of the acclaimed lecture series, The Canvas Askew. He has also been awarded the prestigious senior fellowship by the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, Teen Murti House for research on the mental health aspects of communal conflict.