Real Strength is Within US ALL

I was munching a dosa, I hadn’t eaten for the entire day. I had just spoken to Subhash on the phone, and I hoped that I would be able to complete my platter before he came. But he arrived in a jiffy in his auto. I embarrassingly rushed forward to offer him a seat. His smile radiates out positive energies and he has a really graceful air about himself; I said to myself. His eyes twinkle as we talk to him, but there is a certain gloom that settles as he sits down. He knows why we have come.

Subhash is 46 years old, married and with two very bright children. He is originally from Indore. I just look at him and smile encouragingly waiting for him to begin. Soft words start flowing from his mouth. He came to Ahmedabad as a young boy of 15. His father found a meager job in the railways. He could not study long because the financial situation at home was not very hopeful. He started working nights after completing high school, but his focus faltered during Graduation and he could not finish his degree.

I never looked at his prosthetic limb even once, till he mentioned it. But I felt dizzy with awe, by the manner in which he talks of it. He just passes it on as another difficulty. Upon asking a couple of questions, he tells me about how it all happened. A sad smile plays across his otherwise serene face. He was sitting on his friend’s bike. A truck came from behind, lost control over its brakes and tore Subhash’s leg away from his body, right from the hip.

I gasped as I felt the shock waves travel through my spine, as that dreadful scene replayed before my eyes. The pain of having a limb torn out of my body was so utterly incomprehensible. He smiles, ‘it was meant to happen, it was my destiny. What could I have gained from cribbing about something that can never come back?’ It might have been long but his cool strength left me awe inspired, talking about something so unfair with such uncanny ease.

When he talks about his difficult years, he talks animatedly about how his friends helped him cope with just about any problem. ‘I was never alone; practically never…long rides every day and what not just to keep me happy,’ he reminisced peacefully.

I discreetly looked at my watch, it had been almost 20 minutes since Subhash and I met, and not even for once did he significantly mention his family. He has gently evaded that part of his life and I wanted to know why.


An overhaul of stories and he finally tells me that his wife and children had unwaveringly supported him for all these years, but his face darkens with disappointment when he talks about his parents. ‘My mother stopped talking to me after I lost my leg and my father believed that a crippled son would fall upon him for survival, so they decided to keep me at bay, at a time when I was disfigured both mentally and physically for life.’

In a world where, our families instill in us this conviction that it is the only reliable and ‘real’ unit that is potentially existent, Subhash tells me that when everything fails in this world, friendship remains. His parents abandoned him because a crippled son meant an extra mouth to feed. He is proud of what he achieved, and he achieved it alone. Nothing in his built or personality can say that he is a little less than others. ‘I have an artificial limb, not a real one but I don’t pity myself, never did. And I don’t allow anybody else to do it either. I drive an auto and I am proud of what I am.’

His radiant and infectious smile doesn’t falter but he looks away. It seems as if he has been eating unpalatable food for long. He has lost out on life in some ways but is way ahead of most of us. Till today, I have not been able to fathom that indomitable source of strength for Subhash.