“How many of you find it inspiring to see us on stage, and to hear Tarini’s story?” Preetham Gandhi Sunkavalli asked the audience at a packed Godrej Theatre at the National Centre for the Performing Arts, Mumbai. It was a balmy Friday afternoon, and Preetham, who works with the brand team at Godrej Consumer Products Limited, was interviewing Tarini Mohan, author of the recently published memoir, Lifequake: A Story of Hope and Humanity. Almost every hand in the theatre shot up: Preetham and Tarini’s easy opening banter and the context of Tarini’s powerful story had already made their listeners feel like they wanted to be friends with these two bright thinkers.  

“I have a problem with that,” Preetham, who is visually impaired, said. The room buzzed with gentle confusion. He turned to his fellow conversationalist. “Tarini?”  

“There are many reasons I shrivel up when I hear the word ‘inspiration,’” Tarini said. Lifequake is the story of her long road to recovery from a road accident over a decade ago. Because of her injuries, she uses a wheelchair and has had to regain key functional skills through medical interventions and therapy. “I fully acknowledge it comes from a good place. But at the same time, it reflects society’s discomfort engaging with disability as a concept. It’s simpler to sugarcoat it and say, ‘You’re so inspiring.’ What are you inspired by – wheels?”  

Her listeners broke out into laughter and applause, as they did many times over the hour. Preetham and Tarini were speaking at ‘Holding Ground,’ a panel about Lifequake presented by the Godrej DEI Lab at Literature Live, Mumbai’s annual festival of books, reading and writing. Tarini’s book, which came out in the monsoon this year, has won acclaim and attention for its perspective on life, love and work from the author’s unusual point of view. An ambitious, outgoing young woman, Tarini was in her early twenties when she moved to Kampala, Uganda, to spend a year working in the development sector. An accident one night wrenched her life off track – the ‘lifequake’ of the book’s title.   

In their conversation, Preetham engaged Tarini on what it was like to rebuild relationships, navigate romance, and relearn ambition after the accident. It is an extraordinary story of reckoning with patience. “Friendship has been the architecture of my healing,” Tarini said in response to a question about her recovery. Her loving family, which plays a vital role in the book, figured in the panel discussion, too: in a moving moment, Tarini’s mother took over the mic to join Tarini in her reading an excerpt, counting out the beats of their Bharatanatyam practice, an anchor and a rhythm that flowed through Tarini’s account of the disorientation of waking up in a hospital bed far from home.  

“Even when it feels like you’ve plateaued, the truth is that there is a slope” – in recovery – “no matter how gradual it is,” Tarini said. “You are still moving. It’s a reason to never give up hope.” 

Preetham also spoke to Tarini on the question of her experience in healing therapies in Delhi, where she currently lives with her parents; and in the United States, where Tarini went to attend Yale University, from where she graduated with an MBA in 2020. In her experience, which aligned with Preetham’s own, there are trade-offs between anonymity and independence in a town like New Haven, versus familiarity and care in India. “New Haven taught me interdependence, and how to thrive,” she said. Reading Lifequake is eye-opening on the subject of how institutional and infrastructural support can combine with care from loved ones and medical professionals to open up choices and confidence for people with disabilities.  

When Preetham brought up his own struggle with internalised ableism, Tarini responded with a thoughtful consideration of how to embrace the label of ‘disability,’ without feeling boxed in by it. Her concern with disability justice reflects in her commentary for The Indian Express, where she has written thoughtfully about aspects of accessibility and inclusion, particularly in the public sphere, over the last few years. But perhaps fittingly for her experience and the outlook of Lifequake, the conversation was grounded in the universal experiences of love and friendship, of proving yourself to the world, and overcoming self-doubt.  

At the end of the conversation, an audience member asked Tarini, “All of us have moments when we ask, ‘Why me?’ What do you do when that thought comes to you?” 

Tarini’s answer prompted perhaps the loudest applause, and the deepest reflection, of the hour. “I remind myself of two things,” she said. “First, it was an accident. It could have happened to anyone. And second, I think: how lucky that it happened to me and not to somebody else, who might not have had the same tools to deal with it.”