Shaheen Bhatt's "I've Never Been (Un)Happier" Breaks the Mental Health Taboo

This is the story of Shaheen Bhatt- famously known as Alia Bhatt's elder sister and Mahesh Bhatt's daughter. In this book she talks about her struggle with mental health issues and how her even being from a 'filmy' family did not make her escape from mental health issues. Being diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder at the age of 18 after battling with it for almost 5 years, in this memoir she talks about her struggles with battling depression and how she coped with it over the years. 

The book starts with a heartfelt dedication from Shaheen to her family, caretakers and most importantly to her 16 year old self and everyone who ever felt different. 
The foreword is written by her father, the ace filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt. It recognizes the helplessness of a parent, how he managed to stand up for his daughter even when he felt his heart breaking by seeing her like that, how knowing that she adopted some faulty habits and genes from him did not make his life any easier.

Written in a very simple manner, with tonnes of real life instances and metaphors, Shaheen Bhatt really manages to make one feel evoked by how she felt. The feelings and emotions she talked about make the reader understand that depression is not just 'cutting off' from the world, it goes way beyond that. The book takes us through her childhood, teenage and adulthood days and how in each phase depression took over her and made her become invisible to the world's eyes. With each page, you feel empathetic and realise how mental health never has any face, it can be found underneath the widest of the smiles and biggest of the names.

Two things which really impressed in the book are- one, being a psychology student myself I liked how well researched the contents of topics related to mental health disorders were. The book proved to be educational to me and will definitely enlighten everyone who reads it about depression and various comorbidities associated with it. She cited DSM-5 criteria for depression, talked about the overt as well as covert symptoms of depression. She even brought to light the therapeutic journey she went on and how psychologists, therapists and psychiatrists are all different from one other.

Another thing which I liked was how Shaheen shares her diary entries in between which she wrote while she was going through a particular emotion or phase- these diary entries provide a very personal touch and reflect on her relationship with food, sleep, alcohol, suicidal ideation and even death.

The book for many people will not be an easy read, but I urge you to read it nonetheless. As it is only through such mediums one understands that mental health is still a taboo and is not taken as seriously as physical health. Shaheen's story is one that makes you reflect and relate with people around you who feel the same. Her story makes you feel the empathy for many like her and teaches you to not judge anyone, instead be good to them. 

Being from a celebrated family of stars, Shaheen Bhatt was that one Bhatt who always questioned her existence and talents. Depression, unlike any other mental health disorder can strike anyone, irrespective of their background or family name. Shaheen Bhatt rightly said at the very beginning of her book "It (depression) does not come to me because of my lifestyle and it is not taken away by my lifestyle." This tale of Shaheen Bhatt's life helps one acknowledge and accept their mental health issues. The whole read seemed like a tight hug of solace and solidarity from Shaheen as she tells us that it is okay to feel what we are feeling and there is always light at the end of the tunnel. 

This World Mental Health Day, let us decide to be a lot more humane to people around us pave way for all the Shaheens in the world to tell their story.

FEEL GOOD BOOKS!

In these tough times, we are slowly degenerating ourselves into lazy, procrastinating sloths (well, I surely am!). We are losing our sense of being and the hope that something good is going to happen soon. In such times, it is important to find things which make us feel good about ourselves, about the world, and ignite some hope in us. As Paul Auster once said,"Reading is my escape and my comfort, my consolation, my stimulant of choice." This stays true for me as well. Books have been of really good comfort to me during these days, I have been reading positive, mood uplifting and feel good books, Going to share some book recommendations which you can read and hopefully feel good!

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Where'd You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple 

 

This novel tracks the story of Bernadette, a once renowned architecture. She stops working as soon as her daughter is born, being bombarded with tons of responsibilities. With her husband being away in Seattle, her world becomes smaller and smaller.  Then the family decides to go on a trip to Antarctica, which appears to give Bernadette the opportunity she needs to vanish herself entirely and live her dream life. What follows is a witty, engaging, funny series of events in the form of a collage of documents, emails, transcripts, live blogs, FBI reports and magazine articles, all strung together by Bee, her 15-year-old daughter. But beneath this playfulness is a fascinating story of one woman's retreat from the world. A totally engaging and fun read, I was so hooked to it that I completed it in just a day!!

Ikigai by Hector Garcia and Fransec Miralles

Japanese believe that everyone has an Ikigai- a reason to jump out of bed each morning. According to the residents of the Japanese island of Okinawa- the world’s longest-living people, finding it is the key to a longer and more fulfilled life.  Ikigai is a short book based on this Japanese concept. According to this concept, we find the deeply sown purpose of our lives from within ourselves by defining our passion, mission, vocation and profession. Inspiring and comforting, this book will give you the life-changing tools to uncover your personal Ikigai. 

Emma by Jane Austen 

Emma is one of my most favourite fictional characters of all times. Emma is beautiful, spoilt, vain, witty, and all things bright and quirky. Emma organizes the lives of her village people and plays matchmaker with some devastating effects. It is a fun read, very entertaining, with some really catchy comic confusion. The book is written in such easy and flowing style that you yourself feel being into it, and not putting it down without completing it!

A Man Called Ove by Fredrick Backman 

Ove is a cranky old man, commonly known by all as the 'bitter old neighbour', who has lost his will to live after his wife passes away. He decides to kill himself. But luckily for him, he has neighbors who do not let him do so. His neighbors are quirky, entertaining, troublesome, funny- everything Ove resents.He slowly strikes up an unlikely and unwanted friendship with the family and that begins to change his mind about a lot of things. It’s a delightful and heartwarming story. Something in this story instills immense hope and happiness inside me- a must read!

One Day in December by Josie Silver

 This book is a must read for the hopeless romantic inside all of us! The story revolves around three people, who are entangled with each other in all the weird ways possible. We follow the three of them across ten years of friendship, heartbreak, fate, mistaken chances and much more. The lives of our three main characters are woven together in a really magical way, hard to keep the book away without knowing what happens in the end!

Good Vibes, Good Life by Vex King

 
 The Instagram Guru Vex King goes all out in this book to teach us how we can live a life where we put ourselves first. We focus on ourselves, we work on how we speak, think, attend to things. And once we begin to focus on us, we bring small changes in us, and eventually in the world around us. The whole read is beautiful and inspiring- gives you a different perspective of life. 

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In these tough times, we have to keep our sanity alive. We have to find some silver lining. Other than these books acting as some real friends, I also work out, dance, write, cook and obviously binge on Netflix a lot! Anything that keeps our spirits high, anything that excites us, anything which is fun- we all should do, with a hope that we come out of these dark days as better version of ourselves.

HOW TO READ MORE DURING THESE COVID-19 DAYS?

Reading is the most powerful tool we have for connecting people, sharing experiences, becoming more aware and increasing our knowledge. With all of us being shut into our homes, close to our family and being responsible for reducing the risk of COVID-19, it becomes important to have access to proper knowledge, awareness and yet, retain our sanity.
eBook is a relatively new concept for me too, I am still very old school in my approach and love the touch of actual books, and this new technology can never overtake that. But, just out of pure boredom and curiosity, I downloaded Amazon Kindle and started reading a book I had to review which I had been ignoring for weeks. Some pages into it, and I began to think about the prospect of doing this more, of giving eBooks a fair chance. Now that I am at home, and even though my TBR pile rises everyday, I just got intrigued by this concept. And voila! 7 days in, and I have already finished 4 eBooks! 

So, I thought why not share with everyone else also what apps they can have access to in these days, and get into the habit of reading. We are almost always on our phones, why not make the best of it and inculcate a new good habit.

Given below is the list of apps you can access to while we all Quarantine and Chill; 

• Amazon Kindle
  You can simply download their free app and access any books you’ve purchased on Amazon from anywhere, lay in your bed and read!
  You can get access to sample of any eBook for free, can choose your preferred font style, size, etc. You can view magazines, newspapers, and textbooks with high-res color images, make and share in-page highlights, adjust screen brightness and page color for comfortable reading. And have access to any local library eBooks.

• Wattpad
  The Wattpad allows you to enjoy works well-known greats and up-and-coming novelists from the Wattpad community. You can even start writing and sharing your own story to get feedback from others. This is something that I really liked in this app, and which other apps don't provide. You can save your favorite stories to take them with you wherever you go, sync your account to pick up where you left off on your phone, laptop, or tablets. The app is free, with in-app purchases.

• Scribd
  An announcement was made by Trip Adler, CEO of Scribd a few days ago saying that we all can now have free access to their online library amid COVID-19. Their digital library contains thousands of bestselling titles from practically every genre imaginable, including true crime, travel, romance, lifestyle, career, money, current affairs, personal growth and what not! Scribd also has access to audiobooks, whose narration speed you can customize as per you and also set a sleep timer. You can add notes, annotations, and bookmarks, customize your font size, type, and background color, and have syncs across multiple devices.

• Free-eBooks.net
  This was one of the earliest websites I came across when I was researching for free eBooks. This is a website which gives us access to any 5 eBooks of our choice, every month. Audiobooks are also available for us to enjoy, other than various kinds of books in genres like- fiction, non-fiction, classics etc. You can also download textbooks from this!
  You can access it from here: https://www.free-ebooks.net/

• Manybooks.net
  This is another website that I came across; it provides books for offline as well as online reading. It also has a many genres like- fantasy, young adult, science fiction, horror, romance, etc. And the book can be downloaded in a number of formats - including epub, pdf, azw, mobi and more, other than their online eReader.
  You can access it from here: https://manybooks.net/

In these crazy days it is very easy to become restless, lose our mind, and do anything reckless. But please, for your own safety and for everyone else's too, do adhere to all the rules, follow them religiously. Do what you have been wanting to do since so long but never got the time, learn new things, revisit old habits, and obviously, read and educate yourself more!

BOOKS TO READ IF YOU ARE A BEGINNER!

Reading can open your mind to a brilliant world of words, which enhances your overall learning and living. 
I was 3 years old when my mother introduced me to the world of books. Ever since then, I've always lived in that and never want to get out of it. But I totally understand that not everyone develops the habit of reading right from childhood. But as adults, people do want to imbibe this habit, but don't know from where to start. It can be confusing, because the amount of books available in today's time is A LOT and one doesn't know where to start from. So, in this blog, I'll try to help all the beginner readers from where to start by mentioning some of the easy reads, so that they all can start their affair with books and let it mature as time goes by!
Some of the books you can start your reading habit with, totally based on my personal experience are:

• Animal Farm- George Orwell
  -Funny
  -Sensitive
  -Thought provoking
  -Very short; 112 pages
  -Story summary: What if animals could protest, form groups and elect representatives like humans.
  
  
• The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas- John Boyne -Short
  -Crisp
  -Powerful words
  -Story summary: Perfect combination of a boy's innocence amidst Nazi terror.
  
  
• The Great Gatsby- J. Scott Fitzgerald
  -Short
  -Simple language
  -More than just a mediocre love story
  -Brilliant use of literary devices
  -Short summary: Reflection of the hollow, high caste, leisure life.
  
  
• The Alchemist- Paulo Coelho
  -Simple language
  -Short in length
  -Short summary: Spiritual connection of finding your own self and your destiny.
  
  
• 13 Reasons Why- Jay Asher
  -Short
  -Simple language
  -Awaking lessons
  -Very relevant in today's times.
  
  
  
• Looking for Alaska- John Green
  -Highly recommended for teenagers
  -Beautifully written
  -Funny, moving, thought- provoking
  -Story of friendships, with a hint of romance
  
  
• Tuesdays with Morrie- Mitch Albom
  -A feel good novel
  -Emotional
  -Meaningful
  -Short summary: Life lessons from the eyes of an old man.
  
  
• Harry Potter series- JK Rowling
  -Collection of 8 books
  -Not bounded by any age group
  -Fantasy genre
  -Lessons throughout the series
  -Enhances imagination
  -Break from regular monotonous reads
  
  
• The Kite Runner- Khaled Hosseini
  -Introduction to the Afghan world
  -Gripping and emotional
  -Thrilling, yet moving
  -Friendship and betrayal
  -Fast paced
  
  
• Train to Pakistan- Khushwant Singh
  -Very short; 181 pages
  -Historical
  -Heartwarming
  -Short summary: Based on real life experiences of people during Partition; The social, political and emotional condition of Indians and Pakistanis during the Partition.
  
  
  
  
  
  
• To Kill a Mockingbird- Harper Lee
  -Must read for school children
  -Inspiring
  -Debatable
  -Shows and teaches the difference between right and wrong
  
  
• The Palace of Illusions- Chitra Banerjee Divakurni
  -Magical writing
  -Innovative
  -Emphasize on women empowerment
  -Short summary: New interpretation of Mahabharata through the eyes of Draupadi.
  
  
• Lolita- Vladimir Nabokov
  -Dark themes
  -Love story
  -Controversial
  -Dark humor
  
  
• Catcher in the Rye- JD Salinger
  -Modern classic
  -Dark humor
  -Relevant even today, inspite of being written in the 50s
  
  
• 1984- George Owell
  -Very thought provoking
  -Starts a questionable talk
  -Lengthy; but if you can read this, you'd want to read more such books!
  
  
  

So this is it. My small list of recommendations for the beginners. Reading may feel like a slow process, but it is definitely an effective process. Go slow initially, and once you get the hang of it, there's no way you'd want to go back!!

AN INTERVIEW WITH THE NEW AGE HISTORIAN- MYTHOLOGICAL WRITER: KHAYAAL PATEL

From the land of brave Rajput warriors comes another fantasy tale that celebrates their chivalry and incredible valiance. But still, there's something different in this book by the new age Indian author KHAYAAL PATEL, in his debut novel TARIKSHIR: THE AWAKENING. Something which goes beyond what the blurb says. It gives the reader everything they don't usually expect to get in one place; mystery, thrill, adventure and mythology.

I got the wonderful opportunity to interview the author of this new book, which is breaking the myths about the genres of mythology, thrill, adventure and mystery combined together.

The excerpts from the interview are here;

Q1. There's not much known about you, can you please start by telling something about yourself?
A1. There’s not much to say, I think I’ve always been an average kid and I just didn’t give up on writing and here we are. On the personal front, I don’t read as much as I’d like, eat way too much chocolate than I should ideally and haven’t started watching any of the mainstream television series that I keep promising myself that I should start every year.
Also I hoard books in the hope of reading them all at some point in my life.

Q2. The historical/mythological/fantasy fiction isn’t something much explored or preferred by the Indian authors or even the readers. What made you write a book based on that?
A2. I think mythology fiction is something that has gained a lot of prominence in the Indian market due to the increase in writers in the field. Hence I wrote something similar, but with a twist: I brought together the Ramayana and zombies.

Q3. How easy or difficult was this whole process of writing a book for you?

A3. The first draft for Tarikshir (then known as The Eye of Shiva) was written back in 2010. It took a lot of edits, re-edits and revisits to finally get it to what it is today. Balancing a full time job and finding the time to write does make it a bit challenging. The trouble with the creative process is that you have no control over when your creative juices flow. I could be sitting in a meeting at one time and have a flash in the pan idea about the next chapter I need to write and sometimes I just sit and stare blankly at the page when I have all the time in the world. It’s frustrating.

Q4. Elaborate on the jitters of writing your first book.
A4. There weren't any jitters. When I focused on the book, I simply focused on that and not on the trivial stuff - will it be published, will it sell, etc. That helped me a lot. 

Q5. How much do you connect with the character of Rudra?
A5. We are both clueless, we need someone to save us, we both stick our noses in places where it doesn't belong and we both read a lot. The only difference is that one of us has a fixed destiny in life and has descended from royalty.

Q6. When are the next books in this series coming out?

A6. Hopefully end of 2019 or early 2020. Fingers crossed.

Q7. The cover of the book is saying so much to the reader, what came to your mind when you were working on it?
A7. The cover has all the elements of the book, done by a very talented artist called Mukesh Singh. Once the reader finishes reading the book and takes a closer look at the cover, will they truly understand its significance.
For instance, if you look closely at the forehead of the skull mask, you will see a weapon…one that plays a very integral part in the book. That’s just one of the secrets in the cover, look a little closer and you will find all three.

Q8. If you could go back and do all this all over again, is there any aspect of the whole process you’d like to change?
A8. Absolutely nothing since all the aspects of the process; be they good, bad or ugly have led to the book being what it is today and I’m proud of it.

Q9. How do you overcome writer’s block?
A9. Caffeine, sugar and more caffeine! I just pump myself with a lot of it all till I get cracking like a crazy person and churn words out.

Q10. What’s your favourite book and author?
A10. Rene Goscinny & Albert Uberzo and Herge. These guys literally created one of the most beloved and enduring characters of all time.

Q11. I’d like to know your perspective and also the business perspective for selling a book. Should one keep their story as original as they want to, or make modifications in order to sell it more?
A11. It depends on what your end goal is - commercial success or critical acclaim. There are a few books that manage to do both. In my perspective, stick to keeping your story as close to your original vision as possible because that was what prompted you to take the time and effort to actually put pen on paper or fingertips to the keyboard.

Q12. Any message for your readers?
A12. This is one message I’ve given out to almost everyone and that is Please read Tarikshir and by read I mean buy and read it. I owe people money. 

Thanks a lot to Better Books, Alisha and obviously Khayaal for this opportunity!
Go, read the book. It'll blow your mind. Highly recommended.