Fifteen-year-old Aditya was like any regular teenager – busy with school-life, horsing around with his older brother, interested in cricket and generally, being boisterous. He loved food and often pottered about in the kitchen, trying out new recipes. His parents occasionally wondered whether he would ever get serious about life and studies. Would he toughen up to withstand the pressures of the outside world?
In the winter of 1996, life suddenly got more serious than one wanted. One day, his mother, Vasundhara, took him to see a doctor for a headache that refused to go away despite the over-the-counter pain relievers. The ensuing prognosis revealed that Aditya kidneys were gradually heading towards complete failure.
In this heart-wrenching account Vasundhara Raghavan shares more than that worst nightmare of all - a child being afflicted by a life-threatening condition- she relates a story of instinctive courage. She narrates how her family, instead of letting their circumstances devastate them, summoned every emotional and psychological resource to provide a young boy, and themselves with hope. In their quest for the best cures available, they were guided by many well-wishers, one of them being Dr Akmal, who lent his medical expertise to authenticate the treatments outlined in the book.
The ultimate purpose of Shades of Life is to prepare others to meet such exigencies of renal failure, and to help them find a life-saving solution.
