Book Review: Lights Out – A true story of a man’s descent into blindness by L Subramani

Introduction

· ISBN – 9788184003512

· Genre: Non Fiction

· Publishers: Ebury Press / Random House

· Price: Rs. 299/- (I got this book from the publisher for a review)

Imagine the world around you slowly blinking out, your familiar world disappearing into darkness till you begin to doubt not only the world’s existence but your own as well. In this terrifying blindness can you find the light?

This is L. Subramani’s inspiring story of triumph.

He suffers from Retinis Pigmentosa, a condition causing gradual and incurable blindness, which affects one in three hundred Indians. Lights Out shows with painful clarity the debilitating process of going blind and the agonisingly bewildering effect it had on him. In this unfamiliar and disconcerting situation he battles his disability to strive for normalcy, till he transforms his most crippling weakness into his greatest source of strength.

Behind The book

Source: Google Images

About the author

L Subramani is a senior sub-editor and reporter with the Asian Age newspaper. He has been associated with a network of patients who are suffering from retinal diseases. This network helps reaching out to families and caregivers in an effort to provide information, mentorship and emotional support.

Me thinks

After a long time I read a book that shook me from inside and haunted me long after I was done. I know someone very closely who suffers from this disease and to say I have witnessed his descent into blindness would not be wrong. But the author’s strength and firm determination moved me beyond words.

It is said that God doesn’t give you troubles without giving you the ability to face them and I strongly believe in that. But at times when you independence is challenged that is something we all are not able to deal with easily. It takes a lot of firm determination and zeal to convert that weakness into strength and work towards making it stronger with the passage of each day.

With every page that I read of this book I did not have pity for the writer, rather I had respect and admiration for that person who can easily be called inspiration for so many people around the world. I can easily compare him to Helen Keller for she overcame her disability and carved a niche for herself in a very unique way.

When God takes away something from you, He replaces its loss by giving you something else in abundance and that is exactly what we need to remember in life. This book is a wonderful reminder of how we should fight the problems life sends us with a smile so much so that even life is left with no other choice but to smile at us.

The author has kept the narrative very simple yet engaging making the reader enjoy his story and connect with it very strongly. There are places where I cried with him, not for his pain but for the helplessness I felt at that moment and that I believe is the brilliance of a writer to write something so touching!

I would strongly recommend this book to each one out there simply for the brilliance in the topic it has been written on. It is a life changing book.

Foodie Verdict

This book for me is beyond comparison and yet if I have to then it will be these yummy cupcakes for it is beautiful beyond words!

Source: Google Images

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