Tahira Kashyap opens up on life after cancer in audio show

Last year, Tahira, wife of actor Ayushmann Khurrana, was diagnosed with "stage 0" breast cancer and underwent a mastectomy procedure.

Tahira has now come on board for her show, "My Ex-Breast", a 7-episode series on Audible Suno, where she talks about fighting cancer and its effect on her family.

"I had to relive all that I had gone through. Because the audio format is so intimate, once your pretence goes down, your honesty multiplies," Tahira told PTI.

The writer said the show gave her an opportunity to ask husband and brother-in-law Aparshakti about how they dealt with the situation.

"There was a shift, the perspective had changed. All this while people have been asking me 'How are you feeling?' but for a change, I was asking how did it feel like a husband because I haven't asked him this before.

"In this entire journey I was asking them about this, which was insightful. I was going through what I was going through but each one of them have also been going through their share of problems."

Tahira said the "conventional" beauty standards in her family has changed after her cancer fight.

"My parents have been overtly expressive about how they felt. Being a parent I can understand that, you can't see your child with a scarred body, bald head, different from the quintessential beauty standards. With this journey, I at least changed the concept of beauty for my son.

"Today if he looks at a bald guy or a bald woman, it's normal for him. There's nothing eyebrow raising in that and I'm glad I have changed that in my immediate family."

With the show, produced by Guneet Monga's Sikhya Entertainment, Tahira aims to reach out to maximum women to spread awareness about breast cancer.

"I was clear that there were two things I wanted to do- spread early breast cancer detection awareness and spare no medium to take this forward. Because had this conversation happened before and was on everybody's minds, I wouldn't have been sitting on my symptoms for two months.

"This is despite being BSE Biotechnology graduate and a post graduation in mass communication in journalism. Despite this education and privileged background, the awareness wasn't there," she adds.