The School Of Life

Far from being a self-eulogising chronicle, K. Vasuki’s The School of Life is a blazingly honest account of her evolution from ‘an imperfect human into, not a perfect human, but a better version of herself ’. Steadfast in her insistence that she is not positing any definitive, universally applicable solutions to the troubles of life, she offers us a glimpse into her inspiring life and career in the Indian Administrative Service, demanding throughout that we ‘keep questioning everything’ she says. Unassuming as she is, she even downplays her monumental role in coordinating the disaster relief operations during the 2018 floods in Kerala, which devastated thirteen of the state’s fourteen districts. As the District Collector of Thiruvananthapuram, the able and committed Vasuki was also reckoning with a far more pervasive and pernicious issue, which sparked off not only those floods but this year’s Wayanad landslides too. In her own words, ‘having been at the pinnacle of management’ during the crisis, she was ‘frustrated that as humanity, we are still unable to take concrete action for climate change and that such a disaster has fallen upon us because of all of our collective failure’. On the whole, The School of Life is an engaging, endearing, and enriching study in courage, which Ernest Hemingway defined-almost with K. Vasuki in mind-as ‘grace under pressure’. Shashi Tharoor - Member of Lok Sabha Vasuki takes us on a rewarding journey of introspection and self-realisation that could help sow the seeds of a happier life and a more sustainable world. It’s a book for any and everyone of us who are in search of the true meaning of life in its infinite dimensions. Rajdeep Sardesai - Journalist Dr. Vasuki’s The School of Life belongs to a rarer category.........Like Gandhi, she refuses to sanitise her growth; she lets the reader sit with her doubts, and the difficult questions she learned to ask of God, society, and her own mind.........In an India that is young, anxious, ambitious, and often directionless, Dr. Vasuki (IAS) has written a work of quiet power. It is the kind of book that does not shout, but stays.