My Life as a Comrade

Former Kerala health minister K.K. Shailaja became a global icon because of her handling of the first phase of the COVID pandemic.In this superb memoir, she tells her story – from her childhood as a shy, fearful girl, her days as a school teacher where she learnt the art of managing difficult students to her entry into politics leading to a tenure as health minister where she dealt with two terrifying epidemics. Along the way, she tells the story of Kerala in post-independent India – how its Communist politics shaped her family and the state, and what makes the Kerala model so remarkable

Author Biography

K.K. Shailaja is a member of the Legislative Assembly of Kerala from the Mattanur constituency and a CPI Central Committee Member. She is the former minister for Health, Social Justice,Women and Child Development of Kerala. Popularly known as ‘Shailaja Teacher’, she is the author of several books on gender, communism and public health in Malayalam. Manju Sara Rajan is a writer, editor and arts manager, and presently the editor-in-chief of beautifulhomes.com, India’s largest design and décor content platform. She was formerly the CEO of the Kochi Biennale Foundation, the founding editor of the Indian edition of Architectural Digest and contributing editor for Vogue.