The Emperor of All Maladies- Book Review

The book (about Cancer) is stunning, in the amount of research it condenses into its pages. Incredibly, it is written like a whodunit. A little long, in this case it's understandably so. To go from a Persian Queen diagnosed with cancer to the most modern treatments and the biology of the cell- which is the cause or at least the promoter of cancer in a human body, is no joke. And immense amount of research seems to have gone into fighting it too.

It reminded me of Bill Bryson's book in which he has recreated the history of nearly everything. Absorbingly told, it is a no-holds-barred tale of politics, biology, chemistry, medicine, despair, hope and everything in between. At least, an understanding of cancer seems to be within grasp, and the fundamental changes that happen in the cell that goes crazy enough to multiply uncontrollably seem to have been mapped.

Complex as the disease and its manifestations are, partly because the gene mutations are constantly evolving themselves, so there could be a new one as soon as you have conquered an old, there is a ray of hope, and some forms of cancer are far less deadly today.

Maladies are of two major types. Lifestyle induced, and genetic. The genetic ones cannot be treated today, except in fits and starts or with lifelong medication and controls. The lifestyle-induced ones can be prevented or cured by changing your lifestyle, naturally. But this is a choice. For me, the old movie 'Anand' with Rajesh Khanna as the patient with incurable lymphosarcoma of the intestine but spreading sunshine in all the lives that touch him, was an incredible way to look at all maladies, and life. Amen!