A BOOK WITH HONEST MENTAL HEALTH REPRESENTATION, PEOPLE ON OUR ROOF BY SHEFALI TRIPATHI MEHTA SHOULD BE READ BY EVERYONE

Hello Bood Dragons!

I read this really beautiful book called People on Our Roof written by Shefali Tripathi Mehta last weekend and I wanted to share it with you all.

Although people have been becoming increasingly vocal about mental health, there still is a stigma associated with it. Even in books, we rarely come across honest portrayals of mental disabilities and often times books with disability reps seems to be just for name’s sake.

But People on our Roof explores the challenges that comes with caring for people with disabilities, their requirements and focuses on acceptability and empathy. I have posted a short reel about this wonderful book on my bookstagram, so, go check it out and let me know what you think of it 💜

In a once-grand, now down-at-its-heels bungalow in a South Delhi colony lives Naina with her mother, sister, and the stigma that madness ‘runs in the family’.When a woman’s face peeps in from the mists of her childhood memories, Naina sets out in search of the truth behind her father’s disappearance. Then comes a call that begins to unspool the past. People on our Roof is a portrait of one woman’s undying commitment to her kin; her struggle with relationships and a heart-wrenching story of indestructible love between two people. A coming of age story, it also explores the world of people whose minds are wired differently.

It is just the mind, they said. Isn’t the mind everything, she wondered.

We often say that fiction is an escape from reality. But what if that same fiction mirrors a fragment of reality? Afterall, isn’t that why we all are so obsessed with fiction? Aren’t we all trying to find little bits of reality in the books we read?

I was postponing reading this book because I knew it deserved time and my full attention. I wanted to savour this book till the last page before I decided on an opinion. But I finally gave in and read it these past four days and all I can say is this book needs to be seen more on Bookstagram.

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Naina, the protagonist in this book might be fictional but the story she tells is a lot closer to reality than being fictional. As a child, Naina was accustomed to the hush-hush behaviour of everyone whenever they saw her Amma (mother). While her Nani (grandmother) had sought help from Bajpayee ji who would claim that some precious stones could push away the “demons of the mind”, Naina’s Papa (father) would often get into arguments with Nana-Nani (grandfather-grandmother) over her mother.

Now in her adult years, Naina is the primary caregiver for her schizophrenic mother and her autistic sister, Tara. She lives off on to-do lists that helps her stay focused and has adapted by focusing only on her tasks at hand and zoning out of all her surroundings.

People on our Roof depicts Naina’s journey of life with a special focus on her day-to-day emotional struggles, challenges, vulnerability and her deep agony. While she has accepted the reality, there are times when she wishes things were easier, a little better, a little alike others lives and with this ebb and flow of emotions, the author has given a sublte nod of affirmation to the act of allowing oneself to feel what they are feeling because those emotions are valid and they are allowed to feel them.

The writing is so beautiful and vivid that the transition from the inner lives to the outer lives of the protagonist feels a complete whole rather than being disjointed halves. It’s an extremely captivating book and the narration kept me hooked.

People on our Roof in an honest portrayal of disabled characters and their caregivers aims at offering comfort and reaches for the need to having empathy and understanding towards both- the sufferers and the caregivers.

Get yourself a copy of People on our Roof by Shefali Tripathi Mehta

For creative bookish content, interviews, collabs and promotional enquiries, please email me at query.sohinee@gmail.com or reach out to me on Instagram @bookarlo.

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Signing off,

Sohinee aka bookarlo