Gratitude is the Password to Happiness says Neerja Malik

When you finish meeting Neerja Malik, you feel like you have just stepped off a trampoline – you are left feeling so buoyant in spirit, well, from laughing! You feel you have met a bhangra dancer, a Sumo wrestler, a stand-up comic and a six-year-old — all at once — that’s so much energy her mere presence injects in you! 

Here is someone who has seen many storms in her life — broken bones, multiple miscarriages, a still-born baby after yet another prolonged conception process and two episodes of breast cancer within six years of each other! Anyone else may have crumbled. But Neerja is different! She’s happy facing her life, no matter what comes her way!   

   

Here’s a peek into her uncommon joie de vivre. “You know the best thing about having chemo(therapy)? No parlour visits – aha! Because no hair, you see! That’s happiness to me!” she says. 

Cancer, Neerja says, has to be faced, not feared. “No matter what, the treatment process has to be undergone – even if it means dealing with pain, chemo, hair-loss and uncertainty!” she explains. So, for 18 years now, she’s been encouraging people to face cancer, treating it as ‘work’; this is also why she wrote I Inspire in 2015. “My greatest joy is being able to touch lives and to inspire people to never give up,” she says. 

Neerja believes that if you keep thinking of life as a war where you have to soldier on, you will end up, at some point, feeling battle-weary. She encourages us to see life the way her father has taught her to. She says,“On the day I was leaving for my first chemo session, he said, ‘ Beta , don’t fight life. You can never win that fight. Instead, face it.’ I took that advice to heart. No situation scares me anymore!”

Neerja has 26-year-old twins, Shivani and Sidharth, and this Christmas marks the 38th anniversary of her marriage with Mandeep. She feels her entire life is a miracle! “Har Waqt Shukran (Be grateful in each moment) – this is Neerja’s mantra. She vows that gratitude is the password to happiness! Her parting line, as she hugs me tight, sums up her spirit, “ Hameysha Khush Raho! Mein Khush! Ranga Khush! Mogambo Khush! Sab Log Khush (This is a variation of a Punjabi saying and basically means — Always be happy! For it really, really, pays to be happy!” 

-- DTNext article by Avis Viswanathan. The writer is a life coach, happiness curator and author of Fall Like A Rose Petal. You can reach him through his blog avisviswanathan.wordpress.com

When happiness beat cancer

         

     DNA CORRESPONDENT | Mon, 19 Dec 2016-08:05am , DNA

Neerja Malik, who was a primary teacher in Mumbai, shared with 
Humans of Bombay that her secret to battling cancer on two occasions is a positive attitude

Neerja Malik, a Mumbai-based primary school teacher is an inspiration for all of us, who feel that life isn't fair. Malik, a two-time survivor of breast cancer, recently told Humans of Bombay that the secret behind her surviving both times was taking it in her stride and having a positive attitude.

"I've lived a great life with ups and downs – much like everyone else. Life is ironical at times. As a primary school teacher, I was always surrounded by children, but after marriage I had several miscarriages and then delivered a stillborn. It was the toughest phase of my life, but I finally eventually gave birth to twins – both were premature, but now are healthy and happy children," she said.

Life was normal for Malik after that until 1998 when during an aerobics class, she felt a pain in her breast. Initially, she thought it was a muscle pull and shrugged off. "A few days later, I felt two lumps and realised it wasn't any pain. I rushed to the doctor and got my tests done. I tested positive for breast cancer and had to almost immediately get surgery," she said.

After surgery, while going home, Malik gave a fist pump to her husband and assured him that they would be okay even though the doctor had just told her that she had 25 per cent chances of survival. "Through this whole time, I didn't once ask, 'why me?' — I didn't indulge in any form of self pity. My whole life focus shifted from being sad to becoming a fighter. There were days that I cried, but for every tear I shed I fought harder. I forced myself to laugh, to distract my mind and enable myself — very often I would fight with the hospital staff if they tried to help me go to the loo…even though I would fall on the way I made sure I did it on my own," she recalls

Through her positive attitude, Malik beat cancer, but had a relapse once again in 2004. "I underwent multiple chemo sessions and lost all my hair but I distinctly remember not giving it too much energy, she recalls.

During this period, Malik lost the hair from her eyebrows, but instead of fretting, she painted her eyebrows with a brown pencil. Her nails, too, had turned black, so she would paint them a new colour everyday to make herself feel happy. "I would experiment with different wigs and love my look…there were times when I went out completely bald and people asked me if I had just visited Tirupathi and I would play along! My whole life became about being happy no matter what my situation and the fundamental rule of life is — a disease cannot exist in a body that has positive energy. I beat cancer, again and this time I came back with a thumping victory. I began to counsel cancer patients ever since, because for me defeating it twice wasn't enough— I wanted to defeat it as many times as I possibly can," she said.

Now, Malik feels she can ask 'Why me?' because she has the answer. "Because I'm strong enough to handle anything that life throws at me…and because I already have!" she says.