Shivani Maheshwari, our editor, who interviewed Shormistha Mukherjee a breast cancer survivor, shares her perspective on the book and why she thinks its an important milestone in the genre of personal cancer narratives.
It sounds absurd that you are caught laughing while reading a personal account of a survivor’s breast cancer journey. But believe me this book, Cancer, You Picked The Wrong Girl – A True Story by Shormistha Mukherjee is an ingenious amalgam of health and humour. Kudos to the author for writing about such a serious matter with such levity. In the Indian context, where funny narratives are few and far between, this one is a winner, more so because it deftly turns an account of an illness into a racy read.
But at no point are we sandbagged against the trauma of breast cancer. In fact some pages leave you in tears as Shormistha delves deep into her year-long treatment, starting with diagnosis, radical mastectomy, fierce chemo, the severe side effects, radiation. As the backcover mentions, ‘Through getting a Brazilian wax and deliberating the pros and cons of breast reconstruction to finding a ‘setting’ in the chemo ward, it’s laughter that helped keep her fears in check.
Extract
The operation will take five hours. Mandy (onco surgeon) will do his thing, and scrape out the breast. For some reason I kept picturing him with a coconut scraper. And Dr Quazi (plastic and reconstructive surgeon) will swoop in and fill it with my tissue and pat it into place like he’s making samosas. I have no idea why I keep seeing these food parallels, but one thing is for sure, they make it easier to digest what’s going to happen. See what I did there!
Then he tells us about the most important thing. Which at that time because of my ‘I am so gobsmacked that I can’t process anything’ state, I barely registered. While he operates on me, he will insert something called a port on my right side, at the start of my chest. It’ll go just under my skin, and be connected to my jugular vein.
Jugular vein? Is that what he said?
Yes. The one they cut in the whodunits.
Holy fuck! How will I live if he’s going to be cutting into my jugular vein?
But I say nothing. Just smile my ass off.
There are plenty of right reasons to pick up Cancer, You Picked the Wrong Girl. It is honest, packed with crucial minutiae often glossed over, to give full picture of breast cancer and the excruciating suffering. But what makes it’s a blockbuster are the goofy triviality and irreverence. You close the book wiser with a broad smile. Go for it!
Link to the book:Cancer, you picked the wrong girl
