Interleaves: Ruminations on Illness and Spiritual Life

Interleaves is a paean to the transformative potential of catastrophic life changes. It records the twin journeys in Lata Mani's life in the wake of a head injury she sustained in 1993: her baptism of fire into disability and her spontaneous awakening to Devi, the Divine Mother, in context of this crisis. Through contemplative writing, poetry and cultural criticism of the way society perceives illness, it invites the reader to join her as she witnesses, honors, grieves and celebrates her experience, and in the process radically revises her prior sense of the very meaning, purpose and promise of life. (Yoda, 2011; first self-published in 2001 as audio CD & book)

My teacher used to say "there are a hundred alternatives to suffering when you are in pain." This book speaks perfectly to this option. This is the path of the devoted heart as it takes pilgrimage through a whole new landscape of brain injury. A remarkable book. Stephen & Ondrea Levine, acclaimed authors and dharma teachers.

Lata Mani's is not simply a story of courage. Nor of change. Or of overcoming pain and fear. Or finding god. It is the story of acceptance. Of readiness to be. To experience. And she communicates this with such felicity and grace, in turn inviting the reader/listener to go deeper within their own experiences. The Hindu

Select Reviews/Interviews

Anupam Kant Verma, Circumscribing Pain, Livemint, October 17 2011 read here / download here. 

Aditi De, Leaves from a Spiritual Travelogue,  The Economic Times, June 17 2001, download here.

Sanghamitra Chakraborty, Encounter Lata Mani, Times of India, June 17 2001, download here.

Nandini Murali, Interleaves: A Meditative Reflection on Illness, Housecalls, March-April 2002, download here.

More on audio composition here.

To listen to the audiobook of Interleaves go here.