After I spent three months lying fl at in the bed, the physiotherapists started working on preparing to make me sit. After months of re- maining in the same fl at posture, it wasn’t easy for me to get used to being in a vertical position again. The physiotherapists used to tie me on a tilting bed and then gradually turn levers to bring me into a standing position while being tied to the bed by straps. The blood would drain out of my head and I would vomit and faint. (My heart was no longer used to pumping blood against gravity.) They would take me back to the fl at position again to help me recover. This pro- cess continued till the time I was somewhat ready to be shifted into a wheel chair. During this period I had started reading too. I had books hung over my bed with a clamp in such a way that I could read. I also had an empty chess board hung over my bed and I would play and imagine moves on that empty chessboard. I had never played chess before my accident. I began from the basics but made good progress. The training that my mind had gone through during the past four months in terms of imagination, calculation and analysis helped me make good progress at learning chess.
Still bedridden, I had taken admission in a two-year master’s degree course in Indian history at the Pune University. My family, friends and relatives dedicated their lives to support me during this phase. Finally, the day came when I was to be moved from the bed to a wheelchair. Once in the wheelchair, I immediately fainted as the
blood rushed out of my head and I had to be shifted back into the bed. This shifting to and from bed to the wheelchair and back also continued for a while, till I could fi nally sit in the wheelchair without fainting. I was able to sit but my body felt very unsteady, as if it would tumble in any direction any time. I was tied to the wheelchair with a seat belt. The doctor who supervised my being moved into the wheelchair predicted, ‘See, one day he might be able to push his wheelchair himself. That’s the maximum he might be able to achieve’.
I started trying to push the wheels with my palms and thumb the fi rst time I sat in the wheelchair. It took me an hour to wheel a few yards and I was thoroughly exhausted at the end of it. Initially I could sit in a wheelchair for a very short period of time and most of the time was still spent in bed. I spent this time reading, playing chess, doing calculations or exercising. Gradually, my sitting time in the wheelchair increased. I made it a point to wheel myself inch by inch around the ward, meeting other patients and staff. I became popular with the entire staff and patients of the hospital for my cheerful attitude and my hard work. The doctors and nurses would give my example to other patients too. When any of the patients would be depressed, a word was sent for me to go and visit that patient.
My exercising continued and gradually I started going outdoors on my wheelchair. I would have to struggle very hard to move the wheelchair, yet I insisted on doing it myself. Wheelchairs those days weren’t sophisticated as the modern ones are and it was really tough for me to push the wheels, also because my hands didn’t work properly. Usually, any one passing by would start pushing my chair after seeing my plight; something I didn’t like. However hard it was, I wanted to push my wheelchair myself. There were slopes at various entrances and to avoid falling forward and to maintain my balance I would move in backward direction to go down the slopes. With great efforts I would make it to the bottom of the slope moving backwards when
someone would come from behind and push me back up thinking that I was trying to go up the slope. I would have a hard time trying to convince people that I wanted to push my chair myself. Finally, I had it painted on the back of my wheelchair in bold capitals ‘DO NOT PUSH’. My thumbs would hurt and my palms had cuts and bruises, but I made it a point to wheel two kilometres up a gentle slope in the hospital every day. It used to take an Everest of an effort to climb this slope. My wheelchair had an alignment defect and it pulled badly to one side making it horribly diffi cult for me to move it and I could not even fi nd someone who could correct the fault in the wheelchair.
I played a lot of chess. Nearly all my spare time was spent playing chess. I played with anyone who was available or I played with myself. I found chess similar to football in the way that both games are so tough and energy-consuming that most people avoid playing them. Both games are tremendously challenging. It was chess and cal- culations which took my ability to understand logic and calculations to a higher level. How one of the possible moves could lead to a host of probabilities in the next and a much larger number in the one next to that. Planning even a couple of moves ahead meant that you had to take care of a very large number of possibilities.
I tried my best to make good use of all the time I had. I did a lot of things, making the best of what I had. At the same time, I sometimes wondered what the future held for me. With this injury, what could I possibly do now; what could I achieve in life? I needed two people to shift me from my bed into the wheelchair and vice versa. Here, in the hospital, the staff was there to help me but how would I man- age once I was back home. What work or job would I be able to do? I couldn’t imagine or think about what all I would be able to do in my future.
Around this time (the middle of the year 1996) I was presented with a computer, thanks to the insistence of my elder brother. Being always inclined towards outdoor activity and sports, I was rather scared of computers. I had a near phobia. I didn’t want to work with computers. Computers weren’t very common those days. One had to write pro- grams and commands with the correct syntax to be able to operate them. Computers weren’t as much fun as they are today. I started by playing chess and other games on the computer. Not much fun activ- ities could be done with computers those days. However, I gradually developed an interest in computers. I was able to beat the ziggurat windows chess software at the expert level, and with the chess software from IBM, I was able to draw a couple of times.
I wanted to study computers, and I had to fi nd a way how I could do that. There was a technical institute right next to the hospital but it did not have a course on computer education. I met with some senior members of the management with a suggestion to introduce a computer course. Fortunately, things worked out and they decided to start a computer course in the new academic year. I joined the course. A lot of young students too joined the course. The place was about 500 metres from my hospital ward and I would wheel there myself. It would take me half an hour to wheel the distance from my hospital ward to my classroom. I could write a little with a thick marker pen stuck between my fi ngers, but that way I could not take down lengthy notes. I had to memorize the lessons as much as I could while the lessons were taught in the class.
Thankfully, the mental training I had put myself through during the past months helped me. I scored 99% and topped the course. My story was covered in the local newspaper immediately thereafter and later in a national newspaper. I started receiving letters from all over the country. I was so popular in the area that a letter with just my name and the place on it would reach me. No other details were required.