Stories of courage and perseverance in the face of life’s challenges always manage to inspire those reading them and the story of Malathi Holla is one such tale. A victim of polio at an early age, Malathi stayed positive despite countless surgeries and endless pain to overcome the limitations of her disability. Despite being from a poor family, she managed to get an education, participated in countless athletic competitions and international Paralympics and bagged an Arjuna Award for her achievements. Malathi’s story is only one of the several inspirational stories compiled in the book, Gifted, by Sudha Menon and V R Ferose. The story written in first person brings home the reality of Malathi’s pain and struggles and how she gradually developed a strong will to succeed against the odds.
Here’s an excerpt from Malathi’s story:
I was born in 1958 as a very normal child to my parents who hailed from a small village near Udipi, and we were very, very poor. My mother used to tell me that I started walking and even running when I was 9-months-old. I was naughty, and it was very difficult for them to handle me. When I was about 14 months old, I got a raging fever that was, in fact, a polio attack that left me paralyzed neck down. Till I was 5-years-old, the only portion of my body that could move was my neck.
With four children to feed and no prospects, my parents migrated to Bengaluru so that my father could work at his cousin’s Udipi hotel. Since he was illiterate, he was happy that he could find any employment at all. My mother took on the responsibility of making sure that I, her youngest born, could get some chance in life and so, every afternoon, she would put me on her hip and we would take the bus to the Victoria hospital at the other end of the city so that I could get the electric shock treatment which, she was told, would help me regain some strength in my limbs. It was four hours of treatment every day and she would stand beside me when I screamed from the pain as the electrical shock tore through my body. This went on for two years till one day, miraculously, I regained control and strength in my upper body.
When I was about 5 years old, doctors at the hospital told my parents that I stood a better chance if they admitted me to the Ishwari Prasad Dattatraya Orthopaedic Centre in Chennai where I could get boarding, lodging, medical treatment, and education, under one roof. The centre worked with physically challenged children not just to help them become more independent physically but also rehabilitate them with life and livelihood skills. It was a tough decision for my parents, but they wanted my life to be better and so I lived there for the next fifteen years of my life, growing up with 100-150 children with various degrees of disability. It was hard because I missed my siblings and my parents but my natural aptitude to make friends soon had me bonding with the other children at the centre.
I was a naughty child, completely undisciplined and yet, nothing happened at that centre without me-neither sports nor extracurricular activities-because I was good at all of this. I played the tabla, the violin, and participated in various music and dance programs. It was an institution for learning that gave me a new life by attending to my pain and giving me happiness. I never took my life at the centre as a struggle or challenge. I think that if I had been raised in my own house by my family, I would have been happy but would have never got the experiences and the learning that I got at the centre.
In some ways, I think the stay there gave me the life I live today. If I wallowed in pity in my earlier life, the sight of so many children in far worse conditions than me, woke me up to my blessings. Faced with pain and suffering of those children, I quickly assumed the role of a friend and caretaker, helping them out with their chores that often included attending to their personal hygiene. The centre had very limited staff and it was not always possible for them to give 100 percent attention to each of us. I, myself, was at that point crawling on the ground to get around but that did not stop my heart from going out to another soul who was in need.
I felt the first stirring of compassion in those years at the centre and soon, I was a friend and companion to many of the co-boarders. Living with so many kids who were disabled in different ways, I learnt to look after everybody’s interests, often taking up the weaker one’s cause, even if my opponent was a formidable one. To this day, I cannot stand anyone cheating or bullying a weaker person and I cannot help but go and take bullies to task. Those fifteen years at the centre, away from my family, made me grow up early and pick up leadership qualities.
During my stay there, I noticed there were children whose parents never came to meet them. They washed their hands off any further responsibility of their children with the result that those kids even spent their summer holidays alone at the centre when the rest of us went home to be with our family. I made sure that when I returned from my own stay with my family, I carried lots of delicious homemade goodies that I shared with them.
My father meant everything to me-all through my stay at the institute and till his death. He was the one who believed in me and stood by me when I went through surgery after surgery to correct my limbs at the Chennai centre. My mother hardly ever came to visit me because she could not bear the sight of my surgery-ravaged body. She had seen me in pain as a kid and she could not take any more of my pain.
More on>> Balancing Act
