How I converted my physical disability into my strength
i remember
when i was a kid i read a line in my
moral science book
that your hard times of life may teach
you what your books can never
for my hindi speaking audience i would
like to say the same line in hindi
that have engaged
and it is not just a line which i have
read and listened but it is the line
which i have experienced
and lived in each and every moment of my
life since my birth
talking about my story 20 years back
when i was born
my parents were very happy because i was
their first child
for some months everything went very
fine but after some months of my birth
they found something abnormal in my body
they could not understand what was
actually happening with me
so on the suggestions of some family
members and relatives they took me to a
doctor
and the doctor told them that i have
born with a disease called scoliosis
which basically means that i had a band
in my spinal cord
in my back bone it was a big shock for
them
their happiness turned into sadness
their good times turned into hard times
they were not getting what should they
do but despite being from a rural and
financially weak background
they tried their best to provide me good
medical treatment but nothing helped me
in improving
so at last at the age of seven i had to
go through a six hours long surgery
of my spinal cord that changed my body
structure completely
because some instruments were fit in my
body to support my spinal cord in
growing
but they changed the way i would look
like i was on complete bed rest for some
months
i had to do everything on bed only i was
not even allowed to sit
those some months were very hard for me
but the real challenge started
when i went back into the real world
till now i was just fighting with my
physical disability but now i also had
to fight with the mental challenges
which got created because of that the
surgery completely changed the way i
would live my life
the way i would think about myself the
way i would behave to people
and people would behave to me and i was
just a seven year old child
who was not enough mature to understand
and accept what was happening with him
at such time the biggest thing which
bothers the person is not his or her
disability
but it is the people’s behavior which
leaves no stone unturned to make the
person realize
that he is good for nothing and he has
to be dependent on others
i still remember the days when i was put
aside in my class
i would not be allowed to participate in
any competition or function
no one would be ready to play with me i
still remember the days when the whole
class used to be punished for doing
something mischievous
but i was the only one who would sit on
chair and see other students getting
punished
no one likes to be punished but i would
find to be punished because all these
things would make me realize
that i am different and i cannot do the
things what normal people can do
many such incidents were there which
deepened this thought in my mind
i still remember the day of annual
sports day in my school i was also one
of the participants in a game
i was too much excited and happy because
it was the first time when i was
participating in game
but my name was remote from the list of
players just before some minutes
because they thought that i am not
capable of playing the game i was too
much sad and angry
and many incidents were there which were
enough to make me quit and set aside
but it is rightly said where there is
well there is way
i had only two options either to quit or
to prove myself
but the mind and the will of that eight
or nine year old child was not ready to
quit
so i decided and determined to change my
life
i no longer wanted to live a life of a
person who is not only physically but
also mentally indicated
but the way was not easy for me i had to
prove myself
at each and every moment of my life but
i took the responsibility of my life
and started converting my disability
into my strength
on the way doing that the first thing
which i did was to accept myself to
accept my reality
and the moment i accepted it everything
would change in my life
now i stopped feeling bad about it now i
stopped hiding it
now i stopped minding on the things
people would say and talk about me
and that helped me a lot in fighting the
way i ate i would also like to suggest
to people watching to me
that whatever problems you are in
whatever loopholes you have
firstly accept them because until or
unless you accept your problems
you cannot solve them but the moment you
accept your problems it becomes very
easy for you to solve them
because now you focus on solutions not
problems i did this in my life and got
miraculous results
the next thing which i did was to prove
myself because the biggest problem
people like me face
is that they have to prove themselves at
each and every moment of their life
because if i go to someone and ask for
letting me do something
then most of them would say that no you
can’t do this because
they think that i am not capable of
doing the things what they can do
and same friend with me so now i will
not go to people
and beg for letting me do the things i
started initiating the works by myself
i would start works complete them and
show to all
and gradually people started changing
their opinion about me now they started
including me in the works
they would do now i started playing with
them and many times even it happened
that i was leading the group of the
people who would once think that i am
not capable of doing the works
what they can do it would never happen
if i would agree on people’s opinion
that i cannot do the things
what they can do everyone my family my
teachers my friends were against me
but the only person who believed in me
was me i believed and i knew that i can
do everything
and i proved it and gradually things
changed one more thing which i did
was to focus on the things where i was
good at as it is rightly said
when god closes one door for you he also
opens thousands of new doors for you
and same happened with me i knew that i
am a physically challenged person
but there were many things where i was
better than others i started discovering
them one by one
when i observed myself i found that i am
very good at learning new things
i can learn things faster and better
than others i started working on that
i started putting more efforts in my
studies and in the things where i could
use my creativity
with this ability and never give up
attitude i succeeded in becoming one of
the toppers in my state board exams
i have also been recipient of inspired
by government of india and achievers
awarded by denis bhaskar
i have also been one time national and
world record holder and many
achievements are there
but the biggest achievement i got in my
life that i could convert my physical
disability
into my biggest strength and live the
life i am living today
at last i would like to conclude my talk
with a suggestion to all of you that
don’t let your problems and disabilities
become your weakness
if you let your problems dominate your
life and make you weak then you won’t be
able to do anything in life
but if you believe that you can change
your life and if you believe that you
deserve a better life
then no one can stop you you will be
unstoppable thank you so much