Published on: April 17, 2019

Remember Siddhartha Mukherjee’s “Emperor of all Maladies“? Published in 2010, this biography of cancer had won the 2011 Pulitzer prize for non-fiction.

An amazing Indian team has created a dramatised version of this epic book. On 14th of April 2019, the Indian Cancer Society organised a performance of the play at the Kamani Auditorium in New Delhi.

For those who do not want to read the whole book and are more inclined to watch a play, we would strongly recommend this. In an hour and a half it gives the history of cancer and its treatment without boring you for a second.

As we left the auditorium, several images from the story continued to play in our minds. Like the story of the woman, centuries back, who amputated her own breast. The struggles of researchers having to deal with ethics committees and with the conflict between greater common good and individual patients’ welfare. And the greed of the tobacco industry, which despite all evidence of the destruction that tobacco causes, continues to kill and thrive.