Tahira Kashyap celebrates birthday with breast cancer survivors

Tahira Kashyap

Tahira Kashyap turned a year older on January 21 but the partying continues. Yesterday, Ayushmann Khurrana's wife celebrated with breast cancer survivors at the Tata Memorial Hospital.

The author has been inspiring several others ever since she shared her struggle with breast cancer and how to emerge triumphant. "I enjoyed meeting these amazing and brave women. I learnt so much from them. Celebrating my birthday with them was a great honour," says Kashyap who is directing a short film, Pinni.

For Kashyap, cancer wasn't her first brush with an illness that would change her life. "I've been on a high dose of thyroid medication since college. I recall, following my diagnosis, the doctor told me to not tell anyone about my condition since it would hamper my chances of getting married. As soon as I was out, I told Ayushmann. He said, 'Okay, we'll deal with it, but what is it, anyway?'"

"I never treated my body, mind and soul as one entity. I always thought physical health was important, and mental toh kuch hota hi nahin hai. So, I exercised a lot. But I think [the cancer] was a manifestation of the negativity that I had been harbouring. Had I gone to a doctor, I would have been declared clinically depressed. But I chose to cry every night instead of visiting one. I was living a dual life. My husband was shooting; I would spend hours at night crying, and put up the front of a happy person in the morning so that I didn't look like a loser before my children, who were aged two and four then. It was only after I practised Buddhist chanting, and focused on my mental health that things changed. In a way, I'm glad that [I was diagnosed with cancer] at a time when I was strong enough to deal with it."

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