May health books teach us resilience, compassion, tolerance, and understanding to live a complete life.
A World on Hold – A Living Record of the Global Pandemic; Edited by Divita Aggarwal, Surabhi Sundaram, Om Publishers
Words of Wisdom: Health Books for June
This is a collection of first-person stories about resilience in a human crisis. Life has been about dealing with challenges fThe once-in-a-lifetime disaster has changed the way we view ourselves and the world around us. Or those who have lived through the pandemic. For those who survived to tell the tale, will there ever be closure for those who have lost their loved ones, their livelihood, and a way of life to a virus that still seems to lurk?
The book brings together 20 diverse and compelling experiences that chronicle the events of the past two years that have brought the world to a standstill. From Shashi Tharoor, Vidya Balan, Nonita Kalra, and Shilarna Vaze to an anonymous police officer, a migrant worker, a gravedigger, and a cabin crew member – all have shared their first-hand experiences in hospitals, crematoria, migrant labor camps, and vaccination centers.
The authors have shaped the book as a well-researched analysis of the pandemic’s impact on individuals and families and, in the process, on various industries, including tourism, hospitality, education, aviation, business, and cinema. Containing multiple stories of heroism and helplessness, fear and tolerance, hope and despair, the book offers a relentless 360-degree view of the pandemic and the lessons it has to offer.
Period Matters – Menstruation in South Asia Edited by Farah Ahamed; Pan Macmillan India
Words of Wisdom: Health Books for June
Although menstruation is a natural bodily process, any discussion about it is shrouded in shame or still taboo in many South Asian societies. However, a global effort is underway to spark conversations about menstruation and menstrual health. The book brings together perspectives from well-known figures and those whose voices are missing from the mainstream. Through essays, artwork, stories, and poems by policymakers, entrepreneurs, artists, academics, activists, and interviews with the marginalized, the anthology explores how menstruation is experienced differently.
Activist Granaz Baloch tells how she defied traditional notions of tribal honor and led the first-ever menstrual workshop in Balochistan; Radha Paudel writes about her mission to get menstrual dignity recognized as a human right in Nepal; Shashi Tharoor broadcasts his radical Menstrual Rights Bill, which has been tabled in the Indian Parliament in the Lok Sabha; Farzana and Chandan talk about how mimicking menstrual rituals helps them feel more feminine than trans women; Tishani Doshi breaks new ground with a poem about her womb; Ayra Indrias Patras describes how poor women in Pakistan coped with their periods during the Covid-19 pandemic; Aditi Gupta reflects on promoting menstrual literacy in young children across India through the Menstrupedia comic books; Lisa Ray reveals how her illness caused early menopause.
The book also showcases menstrual, or art inspired by menstruation, ranging from Rupi Kaur’s iconic photo essay, Anish Kapoor’s oil paintings, Shahzia Sikander’s neo-miniaturist art, photographs of murals created by young people in Jharkhand, to Sarah’s embroidery Naqvi. At the same time, Amna Nawaz Khan provides perspective through the choreography of her menstrual dance. At The Limits Of Cure: India’s Fight Against Tuberculosis; By Dr. Bharat Jayram Venkat; Bloomsbury India
Words of Wisdom: Health Books for June
In the 1950s, an international research team in Madras showed that antibiotics were effective in treating tuberculosis. But by the turn of the millennium, reports from Mumbai fueled fears about the spread of totally resistant strains of the disease. In this anthropological history of tuberculosis treatment in India, Bharat Jayram Venkat explores what it means to be cured and what it means to undo a cure. The author juxtaposes healing unraveling in different locations from the colonial period – a time of sanatoriums, travel cures, and gold therapy – to a postcolonial present marked by antibiotic miracles and their failures. He writes about the disease, treatment, and suffering in general among people in idyllic hill stations and overcrowded prisons, aboard ships, and on the battlefield. If healing is understood as ending a disease, Venkat provides a basis for proposing recovery in a world where the efficacy of antibiotics is declining. This book is a must-read for those who want to know if a history of recovery can be more than a history of how illness ends.
The Unlikely Friendship: A Book on Down Syndrome by Smriti Rathi; Partridge India
Words of Wisdom: Health Books for June
This simple illustrative book explains to children the importance of understanding friends and classmates around them who may not be like the rest. The book is the story of two boys, Aryan, who have Down syndrome, and Ishan, and how they, from initial fear and hatred, become best friends, helping each other and cheering for each other. The heartwarming storyline shows that it takes little to be nice to each other. It shows how bullying and arrogance can ruin another person’s esteem and trust if we don’t want to know the truth and reality of the other person’s life. When Ishan is empathetic to Aryan, Aryan overcomes his fear and mainstreams himself by playing football like a winner.
After starting with much hate, when both boys indulge in candid conversation, letting go of their misunderstandings, the relationship between the two comforts, and the book shows young readers the importance of compassion and tolerance. It also teaches them that Down syndrome is not a disease but a genetic condition that retards physical and mental growth, but this does not mean that the person will remain a non-achiever.
INSIDE OUTSIDE: Charlie Unwin; Hachette India
Words of Wisdom: Health Books for June
In any high-pressure environment, from special operations to the operating room, Charlie Unwin says, people can be divided into two groups: those whose performance is sent in from the outside and those who control their performance from the inside. His book is about your ability to accomplish incredible things on the outside by paying attention to what’s on the inside. Showing how to train one’s mind, the author explores the inner workings of the world’s accomplished performers, including dual Olympic champions, special forces, fighter pilots, surgeons, lawyers, chefs, musicians, and financial traders, and talks about techniques that make it possible to give the best of oneself under pressure.
Combining his experience as a performance psychologist with a blend of advanced science and conventional wisdom, Charlie takes the reader on a journey through the three dimensions that make up our inner world – the Thinking Dimension, the Feeling Dimension, and the Intuitive Dimension. He turns the complexities of neuroscience, stress adaptation, and cognitive performance into simple and effective training principles that can be used in the daily quest for excellence. Reading the book gives you the confidence to do more and continue with what you already have to become a champion.
