Surely A Different Spirit

I was sitting around at home this Saturday and feeling a bit low with the mind and its wandering and pushed myself to walk across to the college campus at IIMB to attend the monthly guest lectures, this time the talk was by Malathi Holla and came back in a very different spirit.


One has to meet Malathi to even know what an indomitable spirit and positive spirit outlook can do to oneself and to people around you . Malathi was paralyzed neck down when she was a year old and after 2yrs of electric shock treatment that helped a little in improving her condition she was admitted into to a residential school for the differently abled in Chennai where she spent 15yrs of her life. She then came back to Bangalore to study further. Her father ran a small udupi hotel in Bangalore and she was one among the four. Being differntly abled in India is in itself one of the biggest challenge for such people , and how many times would someone like me even think of how tough it is for someone to cross the road, get to a bus or travel by train etc. Malathi struggled through all this and not ignoring the fact that she is from an orthodox family that too a woman. However, with her never say die attitude went around conquering all the challenges that life threw at her and overcame them. After 32 surgeries and some even life threatening ones where she was in Coma for 3months she is chugging along with a smile and a passion that I see lacking in normal folks around.

She spoke about her struggle as an athlete where she had to borrow wheel chairs the previous night of the competition (Para Olympics etc) and practiced all night and went on to win a Gold the next day or how she competed with men at her first nationals and beat the men in the 100m race. She has over 300 medals and ParaOlympic Gold in her kitty!!

I was really moved listening to her story and was wondering why we create excuses for not doing things and remembered what she said find the POSSIBLE in the IMPOSSIBLE!!

She now runs an NGO (Mathru Foundation )where she has brought in differently abled children from rural villages nearby and provides them shelter,food and takes care of their education. I also picked up her authorized biography ( A Different Spirit)

Comments

Kanchan said…
Malathi's story is amazing...you need such reminders every once in a while to be able to see things in perspective. I think that is why God makes people like Malathi and maybe that's why all of us are not Malathis.
I'm glad the world is a happy and sunny place for you again. :)
12:05 PM
Anuradha said…
Hey trying to get back:)
3:47 AM
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