Arti Shah, a top distributor at Tupperware, has not let cancer affect her will to work…

Arti got married at an early age, and was two months pregnant when she went to collect her plus-two certificate from school. She continued as a homemaker. In 1999, her husband Kumar’s sheet metal fabrication business took a downturn. ‘People told us to cut down our expenses, stop spending on higher education for our two daughters.

Some even suggested I cook and sell tiffins to offices’ It was heartbreaking to think that the tough times would blight her daughters’ futures. Dhara was in high school, and Priyanka was in Class XII and wanted to do engineering. ‘How could we think of taking them out of school? The only solution was to get in an alternate source of income. That is when my relationship with Tupperware began,’ she says. Arti went on to do record sales in her business.

‘From those days, I remember three names without whom our lives would be very different. Three names whose favours I don’t want to return because I want to remember them with gratitude always. Usha Shah, my sister-in-law, who introduced me to the company; who lent me money when I had none to get my kit; and for constantly encouraging me.

Geetubhai Parekh, a sterling gentleman. He stood by us, gave me contacts to sell the products to, and money to settle the business. The company itself - it brought me money, friends, confidence and hope in my life. I could bring up my daughters the way I wanted to.’

The shock of discovery, and the pain of despair

Last year, when she was in Kochi on a business trip, the wall-to-wall mirror at the hotel reflected Arti’s first frown of anxiety. She had just noticed a lump on her right breast. She called Kumar back in Aurangabad, ‘I have noticed a lump. What if’
‘Don’t worry, it’s not cancer,’ he said. ‘Just get a good night’s sleep, finish the conference and come home.’ On January 13, Arti felt nauseous on her way back from another business trip. And after a mammography, a visit to the gynae and a biopsy, she was looking at a report that said “malignant". Arti had breast cancer.

It was 25 January, 2011. ‘I knew there was something wrong when my daughter, with the report in hand, instead to rushing to say all is well, went straight to the doctor. Those 10 minutes of waiting to know were terrible. And Kumar was not even in town that day. My mother and daughter were there with me in the consultation room, when the doctor confirmed I had cancer. We were three generations of Shah women. We cried.’

‘Your attitude can make you 100 percent positive or 100 percent negative. For me, the latter has never been an option’

Surgery, and losing hair, but winning the war

‘Kumar and I went for a consultation the next day. By this time I had visited my puja room endless times. I spoke with God and I told him, “Well, you have the remote control of my life in your hands. Since you’ve chosen to give this disease to me, you will just have to hold my hand and help me fight it."‘

At the doctor’s, Arti got the good news that a cure was possible. ‘I had to choose between keeping the breast or surgically getting it removed while undergoing treatment. Since there was a five percent chance of the cancer recurring if I kept the breast, I opted for surgery. My right breast and lymph nodes were removed in February this year.’ Says Arti, ‘I refuse to think of myself as a cancer patient.

Cancer is just one of those things that knocks you in the face like so many other difficulties. There is no question of letting it drag me down. I’ve cried my heart out three times over it already. It’s time for action,’ she says. Arti has taken three chemo sessions so far. After the first one, she lost her hair within 15 days.

‘I prepared myself by this reasoning: when two strong opponents fight, they pull each other’s hair out in their tussle to win. Right now, cancer is my opponent. I don’t mind losing hair in my battle against it because ultimately, I will win, and I know my hair will grow back.’ She didn’t inform her colleagues about her illness and tried her best to let the business move on as usual, with her younger daughter Dhara’s help (who’s Tupperware’s youngest executive).

Attitude is everything; your troubles can melt away

‘I have great faith in Ganpati Bappa. We are Jains, and while we have our deities, I feel particularly close to him. I speak with him like I did with my father. Like a friend, a daughter. I know he’s around me,’ she says. When she gets back to work after a chemo session, people ask where she gets the strength from.

‘I tell them that half the pain is shared by my god. He’s there with me all the time, especially those 12 excruciating chemo hours.’ She does feel ill. ‘I have ulcers in the mouth, so talking (which I love to do and is the mainstay of sales!) is sometimes tough as is eating solid food. I am on a liquid diet nowadays.

I wear a wig when I go to conferences (she’s just back from one in Beijing and another one in Macau). But I have to take these pains in my stride because there is a cure waiting for me; my family is waiting for me.’ And though the treatment is on, she can’t just lie down and wait to get better. ‘If I don’t keep busy with my business, extra time in hand will make the aches worse and my thinking negative.

Attitude is everything. It can make you 100 percent positive or 100 percent negative. For me, the latter has never been an option. I do not hold grudges. I do not feel sorry for myself because nothing worthwhile comes out of it. Looking back in lament does not help you move forward. And I want to move forward. I want to live a full life. I want to go for those vacations Kumar and I have been planning to take.

I want to be around to see my daughters doing well.’ Arti has three more chemo sessions to go to complete her treatment. Her elder daughter Priyanka got married recently. Her mother, who lives in Mumbai, has not left Arti’s side since the day they got the biopsy report. She can’t see her child face tough times alone. On Arti’s 48th birthday on May 23, the greeting “many happy returns of this day” held special value. It promised her the birthdays she would have in the years to come, and it gave her that extra courage to put on her scarf, wear her smile and celebrate like she’s never done before.

As told to Alina Sen. Courtesy: http://indiatoday.intoday.in