Rising Like a Phoenix
In many ways, speaking your truth in an authentic way is the most courageous act of all. Ask Tahira Kashyap Khurrana, who has mastered the art of using her life experiences to inspire others. Her directorial debut in 2018, Toffee, was a sensitive exploration of the concept of child marriage, based on a real-life incident from her own childhood. That same year, she underwent a mastectomy and reconstruction procedure (and took to Instagram to lay bare the details, even throwing in a little quip where she called herself the “half Indian Angelina Jolie”). A few months later, Tahira put on a stylish front, sans any hair, after chemotherapy. She walked a runway, gave passionate interviews to highlight the stigma around breast cancer, and went on to record a seven-episode audio series called My Ex Breast, which chronicled how the writer and filmmaker came to terms with the emotional ramifications of her surgery.
Last month, Tahira also released her fourth book, 12 Commandments Of Being A Woman, a tongue-in-cheek, upfront take on being a ‘celebrity wife’, her battles with depression, insecurities, and cancer, and her learnings from all of them.
One of the things that strikes me about Tahira—a thing partly visible in the photographs you see here, and unmistakable on our Skype call later—is her spirit. If I had to give it a colour, as is done in ‘energy tests’, it would probably be a sunshine yellow. That might explain how, through her entire journey, Tahira has made humour and faith her shield and armour. Her candour is refreshing, and the fact that she doesn’t take herself too seriously, too often, comes as a breath of fresh air. In a TED Talk she gave in November 2019, Tahira explains why she decided to draw attention to breast cancer through social media. How, on the day she was to be discharged from the hospital, a close relative told her that nobody ever needed to know about her
