Every once in a while, you will meet someone who will
inspire you to live your Life differently. Soak in that inspiration and every time
you feel desperate or depressed about something in Life, employ that person’s spirit,
his or her joie de vivre, to revive you!
Last week we met one such person – Malvika Iyer.
She’s a bilateral amputee, who lost both her hands in a bomb blast in Bikaner,
Rajasthan, caused by a fire in an ammunition depot. It was a near fatal
accident. Her two legs were badly injured too – she had multiple fractures in
both of them; nerve paralysis in the right leg and hypoesthesia (loss of
sensation) in the left leg. She was barely 13 then. She was hospitalized for 18
months and went through multiple surgeries in hospitals in Jaipur and
Rajasthan. Today, almost 12 years on, Malvika is a Ph.D. Scholar and Junior
Research Fellow at the Madras School of Social Work. She made up for the time
she lost while she was in hospital, by completing her 10th standard
through a private appearance – she scored 97 % overall, with a 100 % each in
Math and Science! Importantly, she finished in the same year that she would have,
had she not met with the accident; which is, she did not lose an academic year!
Malvika then went on to graduate from the famed St.Stephen’s College, New Delhi,
even as she worked extensively with differently-abled children at the Centre
for Child and Adolescent Well Being in New Delhi.
|
Lady Courage - Malvika Iyer Picture Courtesy: The Week/Internet |
We went to meet Malvika, armed with all this
information – of an achiever who had succeeded despite all the odds. But we ended
up meeting the most down-to-earth person ever, a girl-next-door, who wore her ‘specialness’
on her sleeve. She is aggressive but not bitter and combative, she’s resolute
but not abrasively feisty, she’s accepting of her ‘special’ condition but not
apologetic, she’s conscious of her future – and the challenges it will bring
along – but lives every moment to the fullest! Malvika says that she realized
early on that camouflaging her disability was not a solution to her problem.
Accepting the way she now was and living with the awareness of what she can and
cannot do, was the only way, she reckoned, to live her Life fully,
meaningfully!
There’s an infectious air of positivity about Malvika.
Sitting with her you can feel your confidence levels receive a boost. You know that
you too can face Life – squarely and with a smile! Behind Malvika’s quiet
courage is her mother Hema’s unflinching support. Hema says Malvika’s accident
changed their entire family’s attitude to living. Fear, insecurity, worry,
anxiety – all these emotions, says Hema, did not mean anything, anymore. That
Malvika had survived and that she had to live a full Life began to engage the
entire family. So when Malvika – who chose not to wear her prosthetic hands
when we visited her – whips out her smartphone and sends you a Friend Request
on facebook, all by herself, without having hands like you and me, you know how
right Hema’s been with dumping wasteful sentiments like self-pity and
bitterness and encouraging Malvika to live and celebrate Life!
It is but natural to get stumped by one of Life’s
blows. It takes time to make sense of what’s going on when Life socks you and
shocks you. You don’t know how you are going to cope with your new reality. You
don’t even know if you will make it, if you will survive to tell your tale. Surely,
Malvika’s Life too went through precisely the same pattern, but where she
changed the game for herself is to accept – and not resist – her new reality.
From her acceptance, an inner peace was born. And that’s the resoluteness, the
quiet courage that reflects in her. She employs this spirt to live her Life
fully – unshackled by the past and undaunted by the future.
We came away inspired after meeting Malvika. You
can all it the “Malvika Effect”! We were particularly delighted that she had
accepted our invitation to receive the first copy of my forthcoming book “Fall Like A Rose Petal – A father’s lessons on how to be
happy and content while living without money” (Westland) when it
releases in August this year! I will carry the
memory of this meeting in me for a long, long time – for it is not often that
you meet someone who reminds you that you have, well, met Life!
Very beautiful and elegant presentation. Thank you so much. Hemamalini.
ReplyDelete