CHENNAI: “I was battling breast cancer for two years, that’s when I began writing this book,” says Susheela Ravichandran about her latest book Vaasanai Mikka Vergal, which was released recently in the Hindi Prachar Sabha.
Susheela is the first cousin of Cho Ramaswamy, a former actor and editor of Tughlak magazine. However, Cho could not make it to the event due to illness. Everybody in the crowd was cheering for Susheela.
Dressed in a chic maroon saree she was all smiles and was busy waving to people at the event. Saying that her life was too precious to grieve, the single mother of two said, “My children were young when I lost my husband. It was a little difficult to bring up my family but had I been low and gloomy all the way I wouldn’t have been able to do all that I am doing now.”
Susheela has authored 18 books all of which are humour centred. Her latest book too describes her life in a humorous way. She says, “I have seen a lot of struggle in life. I was hospitalised and undergoing treatment when this new idea popped up. It took me two years to recover from the disease. Meanwhile, I began penning down my thoughts. But you can’t find a single serious or grave narrative anywhere in the book.”
The first copy of the book was presented to Vijayalakshmi Subramaniam, an 80- year-old former columnist for The Indian Express and The Telegraph and also the older sister of Cho.
Vijayalakshmi praised her cousin saying,“ I am extremely happy for her and she has made us all proud. She has always done that.”
“I feel that people should always feel happy about everything that they do and enjoy life to the fullest. This is something we all neglect. I had a lot more to write but I had to restrict my pages as I paid for the publishing,” she laughs.
Vietnam Sundaram and the President of Author’s Guild of India were among the prominent people present on the occasion.