Battle ready
VOGUE India|May - June 2021
Breast cancer survivor Shormistha Mukherjee shares how she reclaimed her sense of self by accepting the rage, pain and fear while powering through with a generous dose of sass and laughter
Shormistha Mukherjee
Battle ready

Within two days of realising that the lump you’ve had in your breast for months is malignant, the doctor tells you that you’ll have to take it off. Not just the lump but the breast and the nipple as well. And before you can learn to spell mastectomy, the plastic surgeon is sizing up your breast and talking to you about a reconstruction.

My brain flipped its self-preservation switch. I felt like I was watching everything from the outside. Or maybe it’s my love for terribly trashy reality shows. I was now starring in one of them—and it was called Keeping Up With The Cancer.

The only way I knew how to deal with it? To look at everything from a distance and find the funny side. So I begged my doctor to put in some extra time at surgery and take some fat off my hips as well.

Should I laugh or should I cry?

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