EL LENGUAJE DE LOS NIÑOS EN EL JUEGO

With my car being beyond repair, I started working on modifying the controls for manual transmission cars. Till then, no one in the world with quadriplegia had driven a car with manual trans- mission or gears. It was considered an impossible task as it would

mean controlling the fi ve controls of clutch, gear, break, accelerator, and steering simultaneously, while also handling controls like the indicator, dipper, horn, wiper and lights intermittently. All of this, with no control over my fi ngers! How would I manage all of these actions at the same time with a single hand?

The task appeared impossible to me as well. But I was determined to fi nd a way out. At that time, achieving this impossible was my only hope. If I could design something with which I could drive manual transmission cars, I would be able to drive any car. Finally, I decided to try my old trick of throwing myself into something to the point of no return.

We can never possibly have all answers before we start. Nevertheless, we have to make a start and the solutions

will start showing up somewhere along the way.

In my life I have seen many people giving up on their dreams because they wanted all the answers right at the beginning of the ven- ture. If they didn’t have all the answers before they started, they didn’t start at all. However, it is not possible to know all the answers before beginning anything. One has to fi nd one’s answers along the way.

I purchased a manual transmission car. It took me one year of hard, relentless and, at times, frustrating work to design some man- ageable controls for it. I travelled to workshops all over the national capital region looking for people who could help materialize the designs I had in my mind.

No success comes easy and what comes easy is no success.

Finally, I was able to fabricate the controls to drive manual trans- mission cars. I had achieved another impossible task. Initially, it was a very diffi cult task to manage with the set of controls I had designed, but I practised a lot and kept making changes to the design from

time to time in order to make it better. Through two years of driving and expeditions, I would make changes and adjustments to these set of controls to make them more and more effi cient.

Besides living in extremely diffi cult and challenging conditions with bare minimum resources, I spent these two years working on my plans. When I could afford it, I drove to the mountains and the streams in my spare time. For four months I stayed in the hilly town of Dehradun (just a few kilometres from where I had gotten injured). I worked at a school for special children there. The area around Dehradun had a lot of mountain streams. I used to love driving to those streams and taking a dip. There is no feeling like lying fl at in a mountain stream and letting the ice cold water fl ow over you. How- ever, living in one room in a rented house, with unclean water caused stomach infections and took a toll on my health. I had to fi nally decide on giving up this place and work. I shifted back to Delhi.

In the year 2003, I got an offer to work for the rehabilitation of war-disabled soldiers through an organization called ‘War Wounded Foundation’. It was a very satisfying job where I could motivate, encourage and assist a lot of war-disabled soldiers. A lot of these soldiers had lost a limb to minefi eld explosions. These people usually belonged to remote rural areas and I would help rehabilitate them to active civilian life. This was a challenging task since these soldiers had no vocational training or qualifi cation which would help them get a job outside the army.

Over time, my various exploits and activities were getting noticed and newspapers and TV channels started covering them. One day, I happened to meet Ajay Shukla from NDTV, a national TV news channel. After hearing about my plans to conquer the highest moun- tain passes again, he promised me that his channel would cover my expedition live if I were to make such an attempt again. This proved to be a big boost for my plans.

If a national TV news channel covered my expedition, it would help me get the much needed sponsors and support for the expedition. This was the time to begin working on my dreams. After nine years of hard battle and setbacks, now was my chance to catch up on the dream of my life. I started preparing and sending sponsorship proposals to vehicle manufacturers all over the country. Elaborate proposals were needed and I worked from morning to night to prepare them. I made a website for myself. It had details about my story as well as accounts of my previous and proposed expeditions.

The most important issue was that of me being in a wheelchair. Would any sponsor be willing enough to take a chance and sponsor me for an expedition, despite my limitations? I knew that I had to be very convincing in my proposals and presentations. I had to be more convincing than anyone else, because these vehicle manufacturers would probably be receiving such proposals in hundreds from all over the country, maybe from across the world.

I approached the Guinness Book of Records and the Limca Book

of Records for their recognition because I attempted a world record

expedition. While the former wasn’t very encouraging, the latter insisted that I had to attempt something nobody before ever had. It didn’t matter whether I was able or disabled. There is no separate category for the physically challenged. This statement inspired me. That’s what I wanted to achieve. That’s what I dreamt of achieving. Nine years back, medical science had classifi ed me as permanently 100% disabled. Now I wanted to defi ne my ability on my terms. I would accomplish more than what physically able individuals had ever accomplished. I would achieve something which would pose to be a formidable challenge for everyone.

Guinness had replied to my e-mail declaring that since this highest mountain pass was in India, people from other countries wouldn’t be

able to attempt it as easily. Therefore, they weren’t ready to consider my record. According to me, this was quite an unjustifi ed reason. Mt Everest is in Nepal. So, anyone attempting to scale it will have to go to Nepal. That didn’t stop it from being included in record books. However, at that time, I did not have the time and resources to pursue it further with them.