People of Value

Dilip Kumar

Dilip Kumar, physically handicapped, dived into a canal to save two other persons and was pulled out in a basket dropped from a helicopter after he was marooned on a rock in the middle.

Dilip Kumar, a 40-year-old electrician, jumped into the Bhanwarkunj canal in Kota on Sunday, when he saw that a woman and a man were being swept away in the strong current of the canal. Aruna Kaushal, who teacher in a polytechnic was drowning when Rajendra Singh, a retired soldier, tried to save her and was caught in the current himself. Police recovered the bodies of Kaushal and Singh from the canal later.

After Kumar realised that he wouldn’t be able to rescue the two, he found himself in danger by the sudden rise in the water. His friends standing on the river bank tried to save him by throwing a rope, but in vain.

The district authorities, who were alerted by the locals, summoned a rescue team from Jaipur, which arrived in a helicopter. Kumar was rescued six hours later after he found refuge on a rock in the middle of the canal. He was pulled up in a basket dropped from the helicopter.

Source: In a bid to save two, disabled man jumps into canal, The Times of India, New Delhi, 4 September 2007.

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Nekram Upadhyay, Dr Tomasz Tasiemski

Nekram Upadhyay is 34, suffers from polio, walks with a crutch, and has won the prestigious Ford Fellowship.

Dr Tomasz Tasiemski lost sensation in limbs after an accident, is wheelchair-bound, and the father of two is now a professor at the Institute of Rehabilitation back in Poland.

Disabled? Forget it; they now assist others to lead an independent life. The conference room at the Indian Spinal Injuries Centre is packed with wheelchair bound individuals who have come to attend the active rehabilitation centre.

“In the West, active rehabilitation is an integral part of treatment after physiotherapy. It’s essential to make people realise that they can live just as well despite their disability,” says Jyoti Vidhiani, the 2005 recipient of Heinz Fellowship for rehabilitation counseling. Patients, young and old, crowd around Dr Tasiemski as he demonstrates daily living skills such as moving from a chair to the bed, or moving past obstacles such as stairs.

Twenty-three-year-old Ashustosh Upadhyay observes carefully as Dr Tasiemski teaches them simple exercises which can be performed without anybody’s assistance. “For the disabled, it’s essential to learn to be self dependent as it gives them a reason to live,” say Nekram. The training does not stop at teaching essential wheelchair skills but extends to wheelchair games like table tennis and football, followed by Murderaball, a documentary on wheelchair rugby.

An essential part of the active rehabilitation training will be to burst some myths about spinal cord injuries. “In India when someone is wheelchair bound, it is assumed that they can no longer have children. That is not true,” Nekram says. Sexuality and fertility treatment may be a sensitive subject but it is clear that Dr Tasiemski intends to deal with the subject in a straightforward manner. As the head of department, assistive technology, Nekram is keen to talk about the various special devices available to assist the disabled to have healthy sexual relationships.

Both Dr Tasiemski and Nekram agree that perhaps the most important aspect of the training will be to tackle community integration and socialisation. Here the onus not only on the wheelchair bound but also on the public, particularly in India.

“In the West, the wheel-chair-bound people are accepted as part of the society at large. But here they are either stared at or are mollycoddled,” Nekram says. He knows, for he led 12 wheelchair-bound individuals into the popular TGIF restaurant at Saket. Even as they jostled around minding their own business, people could not stop staring. But that’s not stopping this motley crowd of unique individuals. Tomorrow they plan to have lunch at Dilli Haat.

Source: Wheelchairs roll and rock: Spinal injury patients offer help to live life king-size, Indian Express, New Delhi, 30 August 2007.

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