OUR HIMALAYAN ROSE

Malhotra reflects on her grandmother’s life and battle with dementia in this memoir.

“My Nanima was not just the matriarch in our family,” writes Malhotra about her grandmother. “She was the very essence of warmth and wisdom.” An affectionate Punjabi term for one’s maternal grandmother, Nanima helped remove Malhotra from her “silent world,” after she was diagnosed with a hearing impairment as a young girl. But when she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and vascular dementia in 2015, it was the author’s grandmother who needed daily attention. In this memoir of Nanima’s seven-year battle with dementia, based on Malhotra’s detailed journals from the time, the author explores the devastating toll of an often-misunderstood disease. Chronicling the full span of the illness, the work details “unexplained behavioral changes” in the years leading up to her grandmother’s diagnosis, including a sudden aversion to her favorite foods. As the illness progressed, Nanima often reflected on her childhood in Dharamsala; these stories would eventually fade, as she ultimately lost the ability to communicate verbally. Honest in its recollections, the book does not shy away from the mood swings and other difficulties encountered by caregivers. Its final chapters provide a scholarly essay on the science behind dementia research (with a master’s degree in Applied Positive Psychology, Malhotra draws upon her own expertise) as well as tips for caregivers drawn from the author’s experiences with Nanima. She found, for example, that incorporating music and dance into her grandmother’s daily routine created special memories and moments of joy. While the bulk of the book may be anecdotal rather than scholarly in its approach towards dementia, this is an accessible work written in a conversational, authentic style. Its engaging narrative is accompanied by well-designed pages that make use of colorful accents, full-resolution photographs, and other visual elements.

A deeply personal chronicle of dementia accompanied by solid research.