Page 29 - Adelante Magazine March 2025

Entertainment
By: Laura Moreno

MALA KUMAR’s ‘What It Meant to Survive’:
Grappling with Survivor’s Guilt & Finding Love

What it Meant to Survive” by Mala later adds that she wants to meet
Kumar is an insightful novel that women, but only for friendship. It
transcends class, race, religion, turns out she needn’t have wor-
language, and nationality to find ried.
love and healing. It is a powerful
work and a must- read for people When Ramya and Juliet finally
overcoming post-traumatic stress, meet up in person, they hit it off
and survivor’s guilt in particular. right from the start despite their
many differences. Ramya is an
Inspired by the author's own per- American with roots in India, tem-
sonal experience during her senior porarily on assignment in Ghana
year at Virginia Tech University, as part of her job with the UN. Ju-
the novel poignantly illustrates the liet, a Nigerian, and has a flair for
long-term social and emotional ef- fashion design, but has yet to se-
fects of such an event in a per- cure a job in Ghana, a country that
son’s life, and how she overcomes is less prosperous but also far less
the effects. homophobic than her native Nige-
ria. For the moment, she is strug-
In many ways, the most difficult gling financially.
piece of the puzzle was recogniz-
ing the toll the events had taken Actually, “What it Meant to Sur-
on her. vive” incorporates technology into
the story right from the opening
Years later when Ramya begins to page. Chapter headings include How the pair successfully work had set Ramya apart from most of
experience memory loss, she has three computer icons indicating: through the difficulties will keep those people. None of her exes
no idea that it may be related to (1) which character is narrating the readers engrossed in this heart- had been through anything that
the massacre. The young protag- chapter, (2) the date, and (3) the felt international page-turner. difficult. Juliet was different. Juliet
onist realizes she must grapple country location. This innovation is had had a difficult life and had
with survivor’s guilt despite having very helpful in clueing the reader Author Rahul Mehta wrote, “Part somehow emerged stronger.
long believed the massacre had a in on shifting points of view and love story, part psychological Ramya didn’t need a partner who
negligible impact on her; after all, setting changes since the novel is thriller, the book asks big ques- lectured her to stay positive when
she was not present during the set in Ghana, Nigeria, Dubai, and tions about how we claim our faced with adversity. Ramya
shooting. the US. power and find ways to not just needed someone who had lived
survive but thrive in a world that so through adversity themselves and
But she was not altogether ab- The novel includes occasional text often feels like it wants to destroy stayed positive. She needed
sent. Ramya had, in fact, just left messages written in computer- us. ‘What It Meant to Survive’ will someone who could empathize
the exact room where the shooting speak, leaving me scrambling for fill your heart, break it, put it back with her emotional baggage. She
would take place just 20 minutes definitions of some of the more ob- together, and fill it again.” needed someone like Juliet.”
later, causing a huge commotion scure (to me) abbreviations.
that she witnessed from the park- “What it Meant to Survive” fits into Mala Kumar previously published
ing lot. The Problem of Trauma other genres, too, including self- the novel “The Paths of Marriage”
In time, the couple decides to help literature, migrant literature, (2014). By day she is a tech
It didn’t help that her parents had begin a new life together in New and the new genre of hi-tech lit- leader for social good and the cre-
forced her to attend that university, York City, where they can live erature with a touch of surrealism ator of a video series on AI in that
pushing her into chronic depres- freely as a couple. as the author makes peace with all emerging space. Ms. Kumar has
sion that she was not able to carry that has happened. written for The Guardian, The Ad-
out her own plans for her educa- But one thing threatens their plan. vocate, TechCrunch, USA Today,
tion. In the course of their relationship, An excerpt: and India Abroad. She also hosted
the two women realize they have “One reason she loved Africa was the podcast “Desi Women Dias-
Finding real love on Tinder something very important in com- because so much of its land was pora” with her brother Kiran
A few pages in, despite the poten- mon stemming from past trauma. unlike anywhere else on earth; Kumar. Today she lives in New
tial risk, the protagonist takes a For Ramya, it’s nightmares and Ramya felt like she was unlike any York City with her wife.
chance and meets someone very occasional bouts of memory loss. other person on earth. Yet Ramya
special on Tinder. The story is told And Juliet periodically struggles had defaulted to seeking out girl- 'What It Meant to Survive' by Mala
alternately from each woman’s with time-lapse episodes. For her friends with similar levels of edu- Kumar, Bywater Books, $21.95.
perspective, allowing us to see the to be able to get through the im- cation or professional experience, www.bywaterbooks.com
dance Juliet does behind the migration process, she will need to characteristics that were at best, www.malakumar.com
scenes with her Tinder profile. She come to terms with its root causes. irrelevant. The most horrible day
at first lists that she is hetero, then
WWW.ADELANTEMAGAZINE.COM \ TO ADVERTISE IN ADELANTE MAGAZINE CALL (323) 256-6639 29