Lifequake: A Story of Hope and Humanity
Lifequake: A Story of Hope and Humanity
Tarini Mohan
Details
- Hardcover : 296 pages
- ISBN-10 : 9353453933
- ISBN-13 : 978-9353453930
A young woman’s quest for meaning and purpose takes a catastrophic turn when she is injured in a motorcycle taxi accident in Uganda and slips into a coma. It is not clear whether she will live – and if so, in what state. A tornado has ripped through her brain. Miraculously, Tarini Mohan opens her eyes three months later in a Delhi hospital, with many impairments – but with her long-term memory intact. Her parents have their daughter back.
As she begins to grasp the extent of her physical and cognitive difficulties, twenty-four-year-old Tarini is in turmoil. She writes: “This wasn’t who I’d been, wasn’t who I was inside, or who I wanted to be. I didn’t want to live curled up on my parents, or anyone else’s lap.” This book is her wise, warm, honest, and funny account of how she regains control of her life.
The beauty of this book is that Tarini never lets you pity her. She just draws you into her world as she learns to live her life on new terms; whether it is getting through the daily grind of therapies or handling relationships that have become infinitely more tangled, especially the one with her long-term partner, Nikhil. What shines through is that even after a “lifequake”, Tarini remains much the same: outgoing, spirited, tenacious, and determined to wrest joy and meaning from life. “For the gregarious,” Tarini writes, reflecting on her difficulties with speech, “a brief moment of repetition is a small price to pay for being heard.”
A young woman’s quest for meaning and purpose takes a catastrophic turn when she is injured in a motorcycle taxi accident in Uganda and slips into a coma. It is not clear whether she will live – and if so, in what state. A tornado has ripped through her brain. Miraculously, Tarini Mohan opens her eyes three months later in a Delhi hospital, with many impairments – but with her long-term memory intact. Her parents have their daughter back.
As she begins to grasp the extent of her physical and cognitive difficulties, twenty-four-year-old Tarini is in turmoil. She writes: “This wasn’t who I’d been, wasn’t who I was inside, or who I wanted to be. I didn’t want to live curled up on my parents, or anyone else’s lap.” This book is her wise, warm, honest, and funny account of how she regains control of her life.
The beauty of this book is that Tarini never lets you pity her. She just draws you into her world as she learns to live her life on new terms; whether it is getting through the daily grind of therapies or handling relationships that have become infinitely more tangled, especially the one with her long-term partner, Nikhil. What shines through is that even after a “lifequake”, Tarini remains much the same: outgoing, spirited, tenacious, and determined to wrest joy and meaning from life. “For the gregarious,” Tarini writes, reflecting on her difficulties with speech, “a brief moment of repetition is a small price to pay for being heard.”
Author Bios:
Born in Delhi in 1986, Tarini Mohan graduated from
Wellesley College in the United States with a degree in
Economics and Philosophy. She worked as a financial analyst for Morgan Stanley Investment Management in New York for two years before taking up an assignment with the global nonprofit, BRAC, in Kampala, Uganda.
After recovering from the accident that cut short her stint with BRAC, Tarini went on to do an MBA at the Yale School of Management in the United States. Subsequently, she worked as a consultant at the World Bank’s Education Global Practice and as a program manager at the Central Square Foundation in New Delhi, focussing on school education policy and strategy, respectively.
At present, Tarini works as a manager at Jetri (formerly 9.9 Education), a higher education institution-building firm where she focuses on disability inclusion. She finds inspiration in cute coffee shops and never tires of jazz music’s horn section. This is her first book.
Born in Delhi in 1986, Tarini Mohan graduated from
Wellesley College in the United States with a degree in
Economics and Philosophy. She worked as a financial analyst for Morgan Stanley Investment Management in New York for two years before taking up an assignment with the global nonprofit, BRAC, in Kampala, Uganda.
After recovering from the accident that cut short her stint with BRAC, Tarini went on to do an MBA at the Yale School of Management in the United States. Subsequently, she worked as a consultant at the World Bank’s Education Global Practice and as a program manager at the Central Square Foundation in New Delhi, focussing on school education policy and strategy, respectively.
At present, Tarini works as a manager at Jetri (formerly 9.9 Education), a higher education institution-building firm where she focuses on disability inclusion. She finds inspiration in cute coffee shops and never tires of jazz music’s horn section. This is her first book.
