“It was 2010 in Nangal, Punjab, I was studying hard, playing hard. Until one day, everything decided to get shaken up a tad. I was on my bike heading to coaching class when I suddenly found my leg crushed between a van and my bike. Four days after my seventeenth birthday, doctors could not bring blood flow and sensation back to my right leg, and I had to lose it. A few days after, I asked the nurse to pick my leg off the floor since it seemed to have fallen off. That was my first experience of ‘phantom limb’ – a sensation that a missing limb is still attached.
Fast forward a few years, and I stand on the banks of Ottiambakkam Lake, having finished a ten-kilometer swim, paddling in the water nonstop for 355 minutes. I was sun burnt, cramped, and exhausted, and yet, I wouldn’t have it any other way. Adrenaline and exhilaration course through me.
I learnt everything all over again – how to sit straight, crawl, stand up, it was all new. Even after a prosthetic limb, I was unsure. How will I travel the world and live a life full of the adventures and stories I had always dreamt of? Would I still be able to become the actor I had dreamed of becoming? Today, I work for a multinational in Bengaluru. I picked up new hobbies and love photography and swimming. I lived alone in hostel through my years in college, I had to struggle a bit more than the abled person, but every difficulty of my past has been a motivation for my future.
Seven years ago, I lost my leg. If you ask me today if I will ever want to change my situation, my answer would be “No”. My leg hasn’t disabled me…it’s only opened up a new world to me.”
– Dhruv Batra
Story By – BeingYou | PC – Mohhamed Rafi
