BENGALURU: It’s hard to know where to start, writing about Aisha Chaudhary’s My Little Epiphanies (Bloomsbury India). How often do you come across a book which reminds you how lucky you are to be able to breathe normally, or read something that makes you re-examine your attitude towards life?
Born with severe combined immunodeficiency, a genetic disorder with no known cure, Aisha underwent a revolutionary bone marrow transplant at six months of age, which allowed her to survive beyond infancy. But for sufferers of SCID, the prognosis is never rosy, with an increased vulnerability to infectious diseases often limiting freedoms that we take for granted.
Confined to her bed for much of 2014 as her lungs ‘gave up on her’, My Little Epiphanies was Aisha’s outlet – a space that allowed her to collect together her thoughts on life, the universe and everything. The final result is an elegant, pocket-sized collection of wisdom that you can hold both in your head and your heart. Interspersed with beautifully vivid sketches that combine colour, line, poetry and prose, it’s safe to say it’s like nothing you’ve encountered before.
It’s hard not to interact with the book without a certain degree of reverence for the strength of spirit that created it, and be struck by Aisha’s profound sense of clarity and perspective. “Having lost something so big has taught me to appreciate the littlest things,” she says, going on to describe the privilege of having a sense of smell to inhale the scent after the rain, ears to hear her ‘mother’s laughter’ or her hands to express herself through painting. “Life is full of countless perspectives,” writes Aisha later in the book. But it’s hard not to think that her perspective is more profound than most.
Pangs of sadness, of regret also permeate Aisha’s musings, and it’s impossible not to be moved by the descriptions of her physical condition. “My lungs feel like ropes that have been tangled and knotted together,” she says. Yet what’s stronger is the hope that permeates her writing, and the way in which she reaches out and includes you in her world.
“Some words are worth gold. Say them while you still can,” she tells her readers. “Say sorry. Say I forgive you. Say thank you. Say you are welcome. Say I love you. Say I love you too.” Simple yet profound advice, which we could all follow.
And while the knowledge that Aisha passed away on January 24 this year, the day that the book was formally launched at the Jaipur Literature Festival, makes reading it all the more heartbreaking, there’s some comfort in knowing that she held a copy in her hand the night before her death, content that her final wish had been fulfilled.