Aisha Chaudhary was an indian author and motivational speaker that amassed a lot of knowledge and insights in her short life period. Born with severe combine immune deficiency (SCID), she underwent a bone marrow transplant in London when she was only six months old, beating the odds that gave her only one year to live.
Over time, Aisha developped pulmonary fibrosis, a hardening of the lungs, a side effect from the aggresive treatments she had been through as a baby. This brought her a lot of challenges, difficulty to breathe and ups and downs.
Aisha gave a conference hosted by Ink Talks, available on You Tube called “Singing in the life boat”, where she spoke about tips to overcome hardships and live a happy life. They were the following:
1_ Believe in miracles: The probabilities of Aisha to have the SCID birth condition were one in a million. Despite her complicated state she survived the bone marrow transplant but then against all the odds (10%) she developped lung issues. In her speech, Aisha makes us understand that more that numbers, probabilities and odds, it matters the faith, the endurance and the fiber of the human spirit. She never stopped believing in a better treatment of her illness and even a cure, which was very inspiring.
2_ Live in the moment: Despite having an oxygen tube through her nose, Aisha smiled as much as she could and highlighted how her dogs, her pug Rolo and her labrador Koby, helped uplifit her, adding how they made her burst with joy and make the problems just melt away.
3_ See the opportunities in the difficulties: She urges us to not focus on what we can’t do and instead, do what we can. Although she couldn’t attend school anymore due to her illness, Aisha cherished the free time and considered she did her best art during that period: she drew more sketches, painted more, used more dry pastels and other artistic techniques as an outlet to fully express herself.
4_ Dare to dream: Aisha considered that the power of mind is limitlless and that things happen twice: the first time in our minds and the second time in reality. She remembered a time when she visualized doing simple things that she couldn’t at the time like going to the market, dancing with friends, running in the garden with her two dogs and how she good it felt to fulfill all those little dreams. So it’s about playing a positive movie in our heads and taking the action to make it come true.
5_ Pets are the best medicine: Aisha was very close to her two dogs and she knew when everything seemed to fail,that they were always by her side as loyal companions and sources of unconditional love.
The take away from this conference is just to be grateful. Even facing a serious illness, Aisha was very grateful for her loving family, dogs and friends and the intensity in her life, and believed her soul could not see a rainbow if they haven´t been tears in her eyes.
Behind her presentation there was a quote from Voltaire that sums everything up: “Life is a shipwreck but we must not forget to sing in the life boat”.
Aisha Chaudhary died on the 24th of January 2015, aged only 18, a day after she had published her book “My little epiphanies”. In 2019, a film named “The sky is pink” starring Priyanka Chopra and Farhan Akhatar was released, based on Aisha’s life story, showing all the impact and precious meaning of her legacy.
Paula Gouveia