IN FREE FALL: MY EXPERIMENTS WITH LIVING

A celebrated dancer, actor and public intellectual writes a memorable account – by turns inspiring, hilarious and provocative – about how she stumbled her way to health, fitness and sanity. What does it take to survive on an orange and a glass of Complan for each meal? Dance the Flamenco till midnight the day your baby is due? Not to come undone in the face of personal loss? Or try multiple treatments from faith healing to mantras to cure a tumour that turns out not to be a tumour? It takes someone as feisty and fearless as Mallika Sarabhai to do all this and more. In this frank portrayal of her extraordinary life, Mallika doesn’t hold back in talking about her ‘thirty-year obsession with being thin’; her addictions like smoking and how she ‘hypnotised’ her way out of it; her fascination with alternate therapies like Pranik healing, Ayurveda and colour therapy, and the beauty treatments she uses for ‘future-proofing’ her body so that she can continue to dance and perform for years to come. She speaks with equal candour about her battles with grief and depression– when she lost her beloved father, the space scientist Vikram Sarabhai, in 1971; a painful break-up with a man she loved; and her ups and downs with her children, due, in part, to her own relationships. The loss of her mother, dancer Mrinalini Sarabhai, in 2016, left her bereft; yoga, dance, transcendental meditation and NVC – Non-violent Communication – were some of the ways that she coped. Laced with humour and an earthy wisdom, In Free Fall is all about coming to terms with yourself and your body and find the lifestyle that works for you. And how to make mistakes, pick yourself up and carry on. Never preachy, this ‘self-help’ memoir delivers an immensely useful message for anyone who wants good health – and happiness.