“I never realised that my walking style changed until my mother noticed it. It all started when my mother and I came down with chikungunya. Looking at the symptoms not subsiding for a year and activities like running, climbing the stairs, or jumping becoming a nightmare, we decided to consult an orthopaedic. I was 25 years and my life flipped upside down once the reports were out. The test results showed that I was diagnosed with a rare genetic disorder condition called Limb-girdle muscular dystrophy. It is a non-curable progressive disease that I would have to live with for the rest of my life. Honestly, I was numb and shattered from within.

I lost my father at a tender age and since then my mother has played the role of both a father and a mother. Having been through a lot of tough times, her equation of fighting a battle was different. She always believed in looking at what’s next. Perhaps that is what we needed in the situation I was in. I tried every medical therapy, praying that a miracle would happen and life would be back to normal. Well, the miracle never happened. 2016 was when I walked for the last time. After that, I could not even take a step forward physically and had to be confined to a wheelchair. An activity as simple as scratching my head was difficult for me.

What shatters me the most even now is that I can never stand on my feet and dance again. I started learning Bharatanatyam when I was 8 years old and never stopped till the day I was diagnosed with muscular dystrophy. It was heart-wrenching to see someone dance in the wrong way and you desperately want to show them how it is done. Not being able to play the veena is something that makes me sad too. My grandmother was a singer and I remember how I used to hum along with her as a child. I was 9 years old when I saw the veena instrument for the first time in my life and started to learn Carnatic music from there on.

There are days where I miss playing the veena and when that happens, I keep listening to recordings of every performance that I gave as a child. But it was not the case with dancing. The only body parts that I could move were my eyes, shoulders, head, face, and neck. That is when I decided to dance by moving only these parts of the body. I realised that the rhythm in me did not die. That was when I start a challenge called #danceontolife. This challenge was for the people who are also fighting a tough battle like I am. You record a video of you dancing in which you can only move your upper body excluding your hands and upload the video on any of the social media platforms.

I did fight through that phase of where I wanted to end my life. I slipped into depression because it was new for me to depend on somebody at every phase of my life. But I realised, if you have the spirit in you, there is nothing that can stop you from fighting the odds.”

#newbeginnings #life #hardships #danceontolife #bodypositive #musculardystrophy #passion #singing #againstallodds #lifelessons #hyderabad #humansofhyderabad