My favourite hobby, reading, has taken me places, both physically and psychologically. Back in 2017, I accidentally broke my old Kindle by elbowing it! When I returned to India, I bought myself a brand-new device, which I still use. Around the same time, I subscribed to Kindle Unlimited and opened up a world of wonder through its digital books.
From then on, there was no looking back, though I have returned to physical books post-pandemic. During the lockdown, I got into the habit of watching YouTube channels for news, and also into the bad habit of staying withdrawn in my library-cum-bedroom, feeling numb. The news channels were confusing because everyone was grappling with facts and fiction. One of the few that brought clarity was The Print, a YouTube channel anchored by the seasoned journalist Shekhar Gupta in his series Cut the Clutter.
This series broke down complex news reports into simpler, understandable snackable versions. Because we all knew that, at the core of the pandemic, information dissemination was the lifeline that held us together.
For me, the other comforter was reading fiction. I had joined the free online Book Club run by the American Consulate. Between my personal collection and Kindle Unlimited, I was surrounded by books, often “trashed and crashed” in one room of the apartment, as I like to say. In a month, I would read about eight to ten books. Hard copies were out of reach because delivery services were shut down. Among those many titles, one stood out:
Book Title: Fallen Standing: My Life as a Schizophrenist
Author: Reshma Valliappan
Kindle Purchase: 05 September 2019
Finding Reshma
I came across Reshma Valliappan by one of those rare card-dealings of the universe. While browsing for a random topic on TED Talks, I happened upon her, much like Wordsworth’s chance encounter with his daffodils, and felt an immediate connection.
Soon, I found myself watching both her TED Talks, one of which revealed her as daringly and disarmingly herself. A couple of months later, in June 2019, I discovered her book and decided to read it, not as a casual reader, but as a fellow lived survivor.
Reshma’s voice is clear, direct, and remarkably self-aware, something that can feel like a far cry for many of us navigating the mental health maze. Through her creative non-fiction, she offers a front-row seat to the world of mental well-being, its ambiguities, and its many interpretations.
When I revisited her book recently, one question kept echoing in my mind: What would Reshma’s present-day view of herself be?
A quick search online led me to her 2021 video interview, mod05lec22 – Schizophrenia: A Personal Account, on the NPTEL-NOC IITM channel. It’s an hour-long, unhurried conversation that deepens the insight her writing already offers.
Courage in Clarity
Reshma’s TED Talk on schizophrenia is an honest and open recount. I, too, believe that baring one’s soul to be accepted is both courageous and excruciating — it almost feels like stripping naked before an unsupportive audience. But until there are clear voices of advocacy for those unseen or unspoken sufferers who hesitate to come forward with their diagnosis, silence remains the default.
Defying the scientific verdict of “no solutions, only doom” takes extraordinary courage. It also takes compassion, both for oneself and from others, especially when self-understanding is at its lowest and one’s inner circle struggles to make sense of it all.
Her award-winning documentary A Drop of Sunshine moved me deeply. After watching it, I began searching for more lived survivor stories and found Overcoming Schizophrenia: Ganesh Natarajan’s Journey from WHO SEARO. These glimpses of truth are reminders that every survivor’s story deserves to be heard, not explained away.
Reading Between the Lines
Reshma’s Fallen Standing is not a linear narrative. It moves in spurts, a mosaic of moments that loop, collide, and restart. Just when you feel she has conquered her inner battles, the next page reveals a blurred path and a heart-breaking fall. But that is precisely what makes the book so authentic.
Please don’t read this book expecting the familiar arc of a young girl overcoming drug addiction-like symptoms, voices, or medication challenges. It’s not a “pick, flip, and shelve” kind of read. Instead, it’s a deeply personal account that demands empathy.
Not all schizophrenia experiences are the same. I, for instance, live with anxiety but no auditory voices. Yet I do see Lord Rama’s energy in my mind, and yes, I admit to my grandiose worldviews. Reading her story made me confront those reflections within me, even when I didn’t intend to compare.
Anger is not a sentiment I often feel; where others get frustrated, I drift into confusion and loss. Every single word of Fallen Standing rang like a gong in a Buddhist monastery. Each page gave me chills and an unusual sense of foreboding. Reshma, or “Val,” as she calls herself, puts up a brave front while fighting the inner storms of perception and identity.
Despite layers of sadness, she manages humour, lightness, and an undercurrent of self-acceptance. Her family appears close yet distant, another paradox familiar to many who battle mental health conditions. Val holds herself together even as parts of her world threaten to fragment.
Empathy, Not Sympathy
This is not a book you finish and forget. It challenges your notions of normalcy and sanity. Are any of us truly “normal” enough to make sweeping judgments about others who wrestle with the boundaries of reality and illusion?
Reshma begins her story in her adolescent days, as a higher secondary student, and moves fluidly across memories and insights. Her narrative has gaps, jumps, and repetitions, but these very dissonances are what make it genuine. There is great depth and buried emotion that erupts like magma from the molten bowels of suppressed thoughts.
Among the myriad colours of life, I hold up the shining prism of Reshma’s experience. Through her words, I walked down her alley, soaking in her smokes, her fears, her rawness, her stale clothes waiting for a wash. It was a life lived truthfully, without artifice.
It was also the hardest book I’ve read. Not because it was difficult to understand; but because it was too honest to ignore. Fallen Standing opens our eyes to the often-unspoken world of mental health and the need for compassionate care across the globe.
Afterthought: Reading as Healing
Reading, for me, has always been more than a hobby, it is connection, reflection, and sometimes, recovery. Over the years, I’ve shifted from reading for comfort to reading for understanding. I now read slower, letting stories breathe, allowing authors like Reshma to speak not at me, but to me.
Books like Fallen Standing remind me that empathy grows not from sympathy but from presence, from being willing to sit with another’s truth, however uncomfortable.
Perhaps that is what reading truly means to me today: a quiet act of standing beside another soul, fallen or standing, without judgment.
Source: Internet Links
Itinerant Storyteller 