adaiyalam  (English, Hardcover, Aksheyaa Akilan)

We are born into stories—of love, duty, shame, and silence. Some of them shape us. Others confine us. But what happens when we begin to question the narratives we were told were normal? Adaiyalam (Tamil for ‘identity’ or ‘marker’) is a deeply personal and powerful exploration of unlearning—of shedding the inherited beliefs that no longer serve us and reclaiming the wisdom that was erased. Blending philosophy, storytelling, and lived experience, Aksheyaa weaves together threads of mental health, relationships, culture, and self-worth through a decolonial lens. From the weight of colonial beauty standards to the unspoken grief of neurodivergence, from the complexities of love beyond patriarchal norms to the quiet resistance of remembering who we were before we were told who to be—this book is a reckoning, an unraveling, and ultimately, a return. This is not just a book; it is a conversation, an invitation, a promise. To question. To heal. To remember.