With Art, Chef Prachi Kulkarni Emotes Unsaid Things As Cancer Survivor

An eye-catching picture on Prachi Ganoo Kulkarni’s Instagram shows her holding a kerchief that reads “Cancer took my breasts, not my spirit.” This slogan, hand-embroidered by Kulkarni’s mother, authentically describes the Dubai-based chef’s vivacious energy. In an interview with SheThePeople, Kulkarni narrated her enthusiastic journey donning the many hats of a chef, runner, artist, and breast cancer survivor. From being one of the few women in her culinary school to finishing long-distance marathons as a rookie runner, to hurdling through difficult days during her treatment, she has emerged a resilient winner through them all. 

Finding Calling As A Chef

Kulkarni’s romance with culinary art began with a passion to pursue a creatively challenging career. “When I was giving my campus interviews in college I knew that I was not fit for somebody who works in the front office, housekeeping, or any of the other departments because I'm far too creative for that. I can't deal with monotony. I needed to do something where I use my hands. So my only calling would have been the kitchen,” she narrated. 

During her college days, Kulkarni was one of the eleven women in her class of over 200 students. She was the only female student in the 2007 batch who opted for the kitchen department. Kulkarni is a now sous chef with the Four Seasons, Dubai. 

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As A Runner, Fitness Enthusiast

Kulkarni has also been a runner and participated in over 21-kilometre runs, clinching a host of finishing medals from across the world. She began running in a bid to prep for a Kashmir marathon she signed up for. “Earlier, I never exercised or went to the gym at all. In 2019 I decided I could not be like this, so I signed up for a track in Kashmir. And I said, ‘Okay, now that I've put my money into it, it will force me to go to exercise.’”

The track required participants to finish five kilometres in 30 minutes, a daunting challenge for inexperienced runners like Kulkarni. Thus, she spent six months gearing up for the Kashmir marathon and completed the run despite all the challenges. She then signed up for more runs in Dubai and India and also took on a virtual 21-kilometre Boston marathon challenge.

How A Running Injury Turned Lifesaver

In 2021, Kulkarni had a fall while running, resulting in a knee injury. She had to take four days off work to heal and decided to take a complete health checkup during this time. It was then that she found a lump in her breast. At first, the biopsy report came back clear but a later test found the lump to be malignant.

Thank God, that I slipped and fell because I would have never done a health checkup because health is usually the last thing on your mind. Normally, especially as expats, when you have four days leave you travel, you go home, but you don’t do any of these things. But since I was not going anywhere I said, ‘I have four days leave. I'm so let me do my health checkups.

“No One Talks About What Happens In Cancer Treatment”

The stigma around cancer became evident to Kulkarni soon after she started her treatment. “I never knew what chemo is and I was suddenly filled with so much information from the internet, that I didn’t know where I was at. Suddenly some really foreign words were thrown at me and people don't talk about what happens to a cancer patient,” Kulkarni described. 

She also talked about the implications of chemotherapy which she was not warned about earlier. Kulkarni suffered from painful haemorrhoids and also mouth sores which made her unable to speak for a couple of weeks. She added, “I couldn't talk, I couldn't eat, I couldn't drink water, and there was a time when I had my blood counts drop so much that my body couldn't fight infection. So when all this was happening, I realized people don't know what goes on during chemo.”

She detailed how she found out much later about a BRCA (a gene that increases the risk of breast cancer) mutation she possessed. “I knew that my dad's mom had passed away because of some kind of cancer. Later on, I came to know that she had breast cancer, which was eventually a blood cancer as well. Then, when I went to the oncologist, they did a genetic test which is when they came to know that I have the BRCA 2 gene mutation which I did not know about.”

The BRCA gene is passed down to generations. Kulkarni took the brave decision to undergo a bilateral mastectomy and also have her ovaries removed to avoid further cancer risks.

Art-iculating ‘Unspeakable’ Thoughts

During her tumultuous treatment, Kulkarni had incomprehensible thoughts that she decided to express through art. “I realized that I felt I needed to speak what I felt because people would text me asking ‘How are you?’ And when somebody asks you how you are, your answer always is, ‘I'm fine. I'm okay.’ But the truth was, I was not fine. So, I decided to draw about it.”

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Support From Family, Friends

As intimidating as the diagnosis was for Kulkarni, her family and friends too suffered a nerve-wracking journey by her side. “As it was new to me, it was new to them as well. In the first two months when I tried to tell my mom ‘I feel nauseous and I cannot taste food. Even the water tastes like metal,’ she could not understand what was happening to me, and then she came to Dubai two months later, and when she saw me is when she realized the gravity of the situation,” Kulkarni described.

Kulkarni also joined a support group for cancer patients, where she realised she was not alone in this journey. During all this, Kulkarni’s husband Pawan, whom she calls her “co-survivor”, supported her throughout. Although he lost his father during her treatment, he stood by her side unwaveringly. 

She added that her husband and she viewed the treatment like a marathon. They treated each chemo session as a ‘checkpost’ waiting to be crossed. “So we would assume that it is a 16-mile race, and we would tell each other ‘Now we have only 10 more to go’ and then ‘Nine more to go’, so the entire chemo went in assuming that it is a race, and we have to finish it,” she described.

My husband has been actually my rock. I remember when I once told him ‘I feel so bad; isn't that ironic that I'm a chef and I cannot taste food for the longest time, I have to ask somebody else to taste it.’ And he said, ‘Don't you forget that Beethoven was deaf’. And that sentence made a huge impact on how I started looking at things, and I think everybody should go by it.

Kulkarni shared how a constructive mindset helped her win the battle. Sharing a message for other people going through difficult days, she said, “Planning what you want to do is very important. Whatever you want to do in your life, you do it now!” Prachi Ganoo Kulkarni is now an advocate for cancer support, sharing the good, bad, and ugly parts of the treatment to raise more awareness. Above all, her zeal for life resonates loud and clear through her ‘now or never’ attitude.