My life changed completely when I was in my graduation and tragedy struck me. I was sitting beside an electric transformer and talking to my friend, when he jokingly pushed me and I fell on the other side of the wall. For support, I held a few wires and the sensation in my hands and legs was gone. In a few minutes, I lost my consciousness. When I woke up, I was lying in a mortuary with other dead bodies. I had no pain, but I felt like my muscles were rubbery. I somehow got up and dragged myself out of the room, looking for a doctor. As I moved, I left the floor behind me covered in blood. I had spent a day without eating anything and I was hungry. No medical representative around me would bother to help. I finally found a ward boy who got me some bread and milk, in return for 50 rupees. He also informed my parents and that’s when things began to speed up. I was admitted to a private hospital. Since I wasn’t treated immediately after the accident, doctors said there were less chances of me being normal or even surviving. They saw that an infection was spreading through my arms, so they operated four times and cut my hand off. The same happened with my leg and toes, I had to lose them too. I came home after long weeks and I had so many people come to me with sympathy. Some didn’t know better, while some genuinely offered help.
I belonged to a small village in Nalgonda district. My family already was going through a tough time financially and things only got worse, but I didn’t know how to make anything better. It was still too much to take for me. But I took my time and started to distract myself from the pain. It was difficult to work with one hand and habituate myself to using only the left hand, but I started to learn to live life with whatever I had. I began to explore computers and mobile phones. I got a job in a plush hotel in Hyderabad, as a CCTV in-charge. But I wanted to do more than just another job. To rebuild my confidence, I began to participate in sport activities. It began with running the Airtel Hyderabad Marathon with a Jaipur foot. Post this, the Dakshin Rehabilitation Centre in Hyderabad sponsored prosthetics for me, including a running blade. Since then, I’ve completed more than a dozen marathons and also tried rock climbing, cave walking, swimming and badminton. After trying all this, I had confined myself to running and cycling. A couple of years ago, I also did a Republic Ride on October 25 from Leh to Khardungla in -2 degrees Celsius at an altitude of 18,000 feet. None of this is easy and it was definitely all more difficult with my prosthetics. I wanted it my achievements to be my identity and not the accident. I don’t want to wallow in pain anymore. I want to get up and make a mark in the society. This was my second chance at life and I want to do something big with it. I can and will do anything that a normal person can do and I’m proud of that. Everybody who knows me today looks beyond my legs and hands. And that’s because I believe I am more than my amputation.
