Life Is What You Make It

Many would take it as a self improvement book by its title and the cover. According to me it’s a wonderful novel which can inspire the reader and make them realize the power within them.

The story unwinds few years of Ankita Sharma’s life, when she was a young girl, and that was almost two decades back in Cochin, where the story begins. Smart and pretty Ankita is a teenager at the brink of adulthood when she takes admission in St. Agnes, one of the most prestigious and the oldest college in the state. Even though being born and raised in a conservative and very much Indian family, just like other girls of her age she also falls in love with her school friend Vaibhav, who was studying in IIT – Delhi.

Restrictions could never dishearten the young lovers who were struck by the cupid arrows for the first time, instead they get encouraged to find their own ways to overcome the difficulties. Ankita and Vaibhav were no any different from other teenage couples. At a time which the modern technology was never a favor for the lovers, the way they managed to keep up their long distance relationship despite all the barriers is admiring. The first two chapters paint a colourful period of Ankita’s life which was blissful and exciting.

Along with her friends Suvi, Charu, Abhi, Dhiren and Christy her college life becomes a wonderful experience for Ankita.  She is a package full of energy and excitement. Her goals are set and mind is focused, with dedication and hard work she sails through her journey, passing each milestone gracefully and remarkably. She wins the college elections and become the Secretary of the Arts Club, scores high in MBA entrance exam and gets selected to one of the best business schools in Bombay.

I find her character selfish and self centered. Proud about her talents and victories, she neglects the people around her and acts rude and heartless towards them. But at the same the same time these qualities make her character more practical than most of the fictional characters we come across in books which are too good to be true.“No matter from where it comes, do not belittle love” A beautiful line I found in the book. May this quote be a salute to all the lovers like Abhi who love someone unconditionally and I wish that these words will make people like Ankita realize their mistakes for ignoring such great love.

Ankita stands strong even in the most chaotic happenings in her life. In most of the situations where a girl would be sensitive and break into tears, she is least shaken. She is so obsessed in her own life and her ambitions to reach the top that life of Bombay seems very promising and tempting to go for it without giving a second thought about what she will be leaving behind. Indeed her life in Bombay was a bunch of surprises to others, as well as to her own self in many ways.

Starting her life with a new chapter in Bombay her enthusiasm knew no bounds.  She tries her hand in many different areas with an unquenchable thirst to reach perfection. Not only she gains amazing academic excellence, but also surprises others with her skills in athletics, poetry and painting. She was climbing the ladder of success step by step marveling everyone.

But every mountain has its valley. One day her journey was twisted unexpectedly. She falls so deep which wasn’t foreseen by her or anybody else. She was thrown out her own life which was then a colourful and promising one to a dark and gloomy future so unpredictable. The story continues with her life afterwards.

I appreciate the author for highlighting a rarely discussed but extremely relevant topic. Ankita’s story would be an eye opener to current society where the mental health issues are still considered as taboo and often hushed up. How many of us will treat as normal and respect a mental health patient just as another patient of some other physical disease? How many of us will be brave enough to reveal that we or one of our family members have a mental health issue? I take the opportunity to quote the lines in author’s words which certainly include a message for all of us to realize and act to make a change.

“See, when you have a fracture you go to an Orthopaedic, right? And when you have a toothache you go to the Dentist? Same way when you have illness in your mind you come to us (Psychiatrist). People have a stigma about it. They do not understand the severity of it. People simply cannot snap out of it, they need to be treated in order to get better.”

The narration of the story is wonderful. It’s descriptive with every minute detail and expressive in every sentence that it would be a great loss even if you miss a single line. The flow of the writing is marvelous and made me get absorbed to the story by each paragraph. The author has used a picturesque language so skillfully which will make the story lively and as if it happens in front of our eyes.

We are often advised to be careful whether we have taken the right path to walk along, but very few of us will bother to stop and wonder whether the right path we have taken is really the path we wanted to take. All of us are very busy chasing after our dreams and goals that hardly we get time to realize this fact that most of those dreams are not our own but the ones which were given by the society by default. Life is what you make it, so be sure that you will make your life what you want it to be!

I highly recommend the book to everybody. It’s a must read for all and will be a valuable gem to your collection of jewels; your bookshelf. It’s not a book to just read and keep aside. but an emotional teaser to urge the reader to think beyond. Ending the note with an extraction from the book for all of us to think about and add into our lives.

“If you do not laugh for a day, if you have not made someone’s day happier, if you have not appreciated something good that has happened to you and if you have not felt thankful to be alive, then you have wasted that day of your life on earth.”