From tonsils to bunions and beyond (Book Review)

One Foot on the Ground: A Life Told Through the Body by Shanta Gokhale

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Name of book: One Foot on the Ground : A Life Told through the Body

Name of Author: Shanta Gokhale

Publisher: Speaking Tiger

ISBN: 978-93-88874-85-4

Genre: Non-fiction/ Autobiography

Price: Rs. 399

Pages: 252

This review appeared in the Free Press Journal: https://www.freepressjournal.in/weeke...

Waved into the ante chamber of a labour room when the pain begins, what do you do? You do what's been told to you. And when the gynaecologist, on his morning rounds, asks you what you are doing there, what do you say?

"Having my baby." Of course.

In another instance, she walks out of the MRI 'tunnel' laughing and tells the assistant technician, "That's quite an orchestra you have there."

Written by Shanta Gokhale, one of India's most illuminating cultural commentators, a well-known writer, translator and also, the mother of well-known actress Ms. Renuka Shahane, this is a witty, well-written and humorous autobiography.

The title couldn't have been better considering the justification for the 'one foot on the ground' phenomenon she faced, many a time in life.

Image (Collage) Courtesy: Renuka Shahane Official Twitter Account (@renukash)

Rarely does one discuss autobiographies with one's parents. However, because there was a mention of INS Hamla in the book and there is a tendency in the family to get emotional at the mention of it (thanks to their childhood and youth spent there), the reader had to.

And to top it, mother quipped in, "That means I received a prize from the author's first husband when I was in school."

When you realise there's a connection like that, you automatically get even more interested. And thus, the reader sped up reading a book which started on a slow pace but with the years adding up, gained pace eventually.

Divided into 31 chapters and united by a body (no soul, please, for she doesn't believe in it. Phew! What a relief!), this is a must read for those who want to experience their own bodies in a new light (no generation-gap humbug involved).

"I'm evenly dark, inside and out. I can live in the Arctic all my life and still be this colour." Saying that to an Anglo-Saxon (pink inside and out) takes a lot more than humour, especially when one grows up in a country that weighs worth on the basis of fairness (no matter how much we claim to have left that long back in our sophisticated, modernised journeys, it's a thriving reality).

Brutally honest writing ( 'many of my ideas for stories were conceived over the chapati rolling-board'), spiced with facts of the time, makes it a resourceful read.

Be it the Jai Telangana movement of the 1969 or the Jay Andhra movement of 1972, or the way menus were decided for the get-togethers that the Naval Officers' Wives Association (NOWA) regularly had, or the fresh perspective to the reader about the Babri Mosque issue -- all of them have been described with great panache. There's also a mention of the Drug Price Control Order. Personally, it was like living history with a zestful person in tow.

Thank you, Shanta ma'am, for coming alive from the photograph from your columns in Mumbai Mirror and taking the reader on a personal tour of all your highs and lows (horse fall included).

The reader comes out unscathed despite everything, albeit with a lot of experiences to treasure for a long time.

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