When Breath Becomes Air Hardcover – 16 Dec 2016

This is a sad yet a beautiful story of a man who saw himself in the gowns of a neurosurgeon and turn into a fragile, bony figure on a wheelchair. Paul Kalanithi felt what it was to step out from the shoes of doctor and slide into the slippers of a cancer patient and die a hero. All my condolences to the families and people who loose their significant other and all my respect to the heroes who leave.

Oh wow!!! Every once in a while I long for a book this intense. I am so glad that Paul has chosen to share his journey. This book is heart breaking and yet it gives us strength. Surely an eye opener that shows us the fragility of human life. I was very stunned with how powerfully he could write although he was a doctor and then as I read on I found out that he did have a background in literature. A very gripping read which I really enjoyed.

Printing quality is good and the book is hard bound.

Overall the the book is superb and a must read.

‘At the touch of love, everyone becomes a poet’, it is said. But one cannot say the same about Death. When Death arrives calling, not everyone stays brave or becomes a philosopher. Not all of us remain the proud humans that we are during our lifetimes, but go begging for another lease of life, no matter however brief that might be. Very few of us have the courage and composure to meet Death face-to-face, contemplate their life so far, take stock of their purpose and progress, and then, finally, do something that would fill them with the satisfaction of leaving behind something worthwhile, something that could set apart their sojourn on this planet from the billions of others. Paul Kalanithi’s was, fortunately or unfortunately, one such life that acquired a glowing purpose and meaning, sadly more during his final phase of life.

Paul Kalanithi was the second of three sons of an Indian couple settled in America. He had everything going for him. A comfortable life with family, marrying the love of his life, pursuing a career as special and as advanced as neurosurgery, reputation that could have landed him a plump career as soon as his training ended. But he also had something else too – lung cancer of an advanced stage. All his plans for the future suddenly vanished like mirage. With a life now cut short due to illness, Paul launched deeply into questions of existential nature, questions he had felt even while he was riding the crest of the tide.

This book is the answer to his questions about the meaning and purpose of human life. And, what an eloquent and poetic answer this has turned out to be! Published posthumously, this memoir recounts Paul’s early life in detail, telling us about what led to his decision to pursue a career in neuroscience, his early days as a resident surgeon and his ascent to glory. Then come the details of his illness, the various stages of cure that were tried and his frantic, determined quest to find the meaning for his life, whatever little was left of it. His wife Lucy’s epilogue is as fitting an end to the book as it could have been – beautiful, full of love and written more in a matter of fact manner than in a mawkish tone, just the same way in which Paul had written the whole book.

Life is a continuum and Death is a part of it, whether we like it or not. Death is in fact the only absolute certainty in the lives of everything, from the tiny sapling to the mightiest of stars. Just like the eyes ignore the nose that is in front of them, in order to give us an unhindered view of the world, our minds push that ineluctable reality behind so that we can plot our plans for decades until, of course, Death arrives calling, putting to waste our best-laid plans. The more we contemplate the meaning of our lives, the more we acknowledge what awaits us all in the end, and the more we chart the course of our lives accordingly, the easier it becomes for us to leave our mortal shells behind with dignity. Just the way Paul did.

Going through the book, I was often reminded of Viktor Frankl’s ‘Meaning Triangle’. According to him, a human being can add meaning to his/her life in one of these three ways – by creating something beautiful – a work of art, literature or something else similar, by being a beacon of love, filling the lives of others with love and joyful experiences or, finally, by showing a courageous attitude towards the travails that Life places on one’s path. According to me, Paul has done all the three and has really added a glowing meaning to his beautiful life, no matter however short it had been.

Done reading, I am leaving this book on my shelf, nestled between Viktor Frankl’s magnum opus ‘Man’s Search for Meaning’ and Anne Frank’s ‘The Diary of A Young Girl’, because I really feel that this book deserves its place up there!

I do not know what death feels like, but whenever I do encounter it, sometime in the future, I'm sure I would remember some of Paul Kalanithi's words. They will have made my life (and death) meaningful.

Examples:
“If the unexamined life was not worth living, was the unlived life worth examining?"
"Before my cancer was diagnosed, I knew that someday I would die, but I didn’t know when.
After the diagnosis, I knew that someday I would die, but I didn’t know when."

This is a gorgeous book on death and loss and grieving - the subjects we all avoid talking about directly. Paul and Lucy Kalanithi have looked at all these aspects of life in the eye, walked right through them and I believe even come out on the other side. While the book written by Paul seems somewhat incomplete to me, (given that was what actually happened due to his failing health), the epilogue by Lucy (Paul's wife) is the befitting completion to it - making the already whole-hearted book whole.

Words can never be enough to comprehend tragic losses, but in the absence of anything else, words are often the only way. If you are going through immense grief or loss, this book will not help. But maybe it will help make sense of all the helplessness. This book is not about answers. It is also not about questions. It is about looking at the questions bravely and getting to know them well and trying to find your own answers, if at all.

Read it for bravery. Read it if you like pondering over meaning and purpose of life.

[ I bought a hardcover version of the book, it has a brilliantly designed jacket and the binding is great too. I loved the font and line spacing - it is perfect for reading at ease. And so is the size of the book. My only lament is that I had to use the dictionary a lot - to search for all the medical terms that seemed alien to my vocabulary.]

The last few pages of the book and the epilogue will hit you in the feels more than the rest of the book. At least it did for me. This book instills a sense of gratitude towards life and also drills home the fact that the transformation from life to death may be sudden and, obviously, inevitable, urging one to rethink the process of fulfilment with regard to every single day. Must read.