‘Serendipity’ is Lisa Ray’s favourite word and her journey through life has been one
serendipitous discovery. “My entire career is an accident. It’s pure
serendipity,” admits Lisa. Present at the launch of her book, ‘Close to the
Bone’ at Project Cafe in Assagao, Lisa was at her candid best. Half Indian and
half Polish by origin, it isn’t a surprise that she has grappled with identity
issues while growing up, which was only exacerbated by her nomadic life that
took her from Canada to India, USA, Italy, Hong Kong and now coming a full
circle – back to India. Her cancer prognosis was made in 2009 and her
subsequent acceptance of Multiple Myeloma – a rare and potentially fatal cancer
of the white blood cells, her attitude towards combating this illness and her
story of remission is what forms the essence of her honest and detailed book.
“But it’s not just a cancer memoir,”
insists Lisa. She has led a colourful life, with being a top model and an
actress; making it to the cover of Gladrags magazine in her teens and dealing with
the insecurities of fame at that tender age. “My career was a technique to run
away from issues that plagued me,” she shares with her attentive audience. Her
mission now is to remove the masks and labels and in doing so get to the core
of who she is. There is a lot in the book that people can relate to as she
writes of her inner journey – the insecurities, the traumas, joys and methods
to dealing with the mind.
After she announced about her Cancer
diagnosis and chronicled her experiences in a blog, The Yellow Diaries, she was
approached to write a book by Harper Collins. “I have always wanted to write
but did not want to write about the disease in isolation from the rest of my
life.” Her spunk and zest is noticeable in the way she chose to declare her illness
to the world. It wasn’t just a press statement. She made the announcement at
the red carpet of the Toronto International Film Festival, unravelling her
authentic self with human frailties rather than perceived perfection. Lisa
recalls, “40 pounds heavier and about to debut in front of my peers and
international media, I felt just a little bit of self pity - not because I was
ill but because I was unable to fit into my shoes. Here I was giving up vanity
to encapsulate my life.”
Having been through chemotherapy and stem cell transplant, Lisa
strongly believes in positive visualisation and the power of the body to heal
itself. Sharing details of the stem cell transplant that she underwent, she
says, “I used to talk to my stem cells and visualise myself to be filled with
cheerful stem cells, like fields of sunflower, I watched them turn their yellow
faces to me.” She chuckles, “I am quite insane like that but it works.”
While following allopathy and the treatment course, she also
threw herself into the world of complementary treatments – Ayurveda, energy
healing, yoga acupuncture, fasting and nutrition. Extensive research led her to
attend a programme at the Hippocrates Health Institute in Florida post her
relapse in 2013. Her spiritual leaning serendipitously again prepared her in a
way to battle her cancer. Ray converted to Buddhism after spending six months
in 2004 studying Tibetan Buddhism at the Tushita Meditation Centre in
Dharamshala. Strangely life seemed to prepare her for the inevitable as Lisa reveals,
“In 2008, after my mother passed away, I enrolled for a course in Tibetan
Buddhism’s teachings on death and impermanence. A few months later I was
diagnosed with cancer.”
Lisa
is her authentic self, bereft of any celebrity trappings and being genuinely
unaffected despite melting on a hot, sultry day. A mother to twin girls through
surrogacy, Lisa confronts life with a rare clarity that often comes from going
through tough situations. A poster girl for cancer survival, she has also
received the prestigious Diamond Jubilee Medal in 2013 from the Canadian
Government for her advocacy of multiple myeloma. As she mentions in her blog,
“Illness is alchemy.” It sure turned her to gold.