Some memories refuse to fade. They come back with haunting regularity. Perhaps, there’s a reason to it, like that of Dr Asna. Eighteen years ago, a six-year-old lost her right leg to the political violence that ruled and still rules the killing fields of Kannur.
The child persevered, not knowing why she had lost her leg for no fault of hers. She fought pain, got to know how much it takes to fight the odds and swim against the current and yet turn up trumps, which brings us to the present and to Dr Asna, who recently secured an MBBS degree. No more a village waif, Asna, is a calm and composed, sophisticated young woman, who believes she is made for loftier things.
As she gets wrapped in congratulatory messages and the hugs of loved ones and well wishers, what pops up through this haze of joy are her years of physical pain and the never-ending struggle to come to terms with it. Dr Asna’s is one of those “true” stories where grit and determination won over tragedy and setbacks.
The year was 2000 and the month, September. Six-year-old Asna and her three-year-old brother Appu were playing at their uncle’s place. Her father was running a small tea shop near their home. Little Asna had just joined class one at the New LP School in Poovathur.
That fateful day
Onam having fallen in September of that year, it also happened to be Asna’s first long vacation after joining school and her home.
September 27, election day, dawned as usual. The tea shop was choking on people. Asna and Appu were at their uncle’s, playing and watching folks make a beeline to the polling booth next door.
The scene changed all of a sudden. A scuffle broke out by the booth and the kids saw folks running to their compound. Seeing the commotion, Asna’s mother came running and scooped up her kids. It was a tad too late. There was a fire and a deafening blast. That’s all she remembered.
The first awareness of the enormity of the tragedy dawned on her while at the Specialists Hospital in Kochi. The bomb blast had ripped off her right leg. She no more had a knee and a lower limb. No surgery could stitch back what was torn to shreds. Amputation was the only answer. The rest is history. Appu too lost a huge chunk of flesh off his feet and her mother was hurt by the pieces of glass that stuck into her tummy.
Reality sinks in
The little girl soon realised she could no more play around with her brother. What followed were days of despair… for all. Asna would cry and kick up a storm over her helplessness. This was how the idea of fixing an artificial limb came up. She was so bent upon having a limb that they fixed one well before her wounds had healed. This again was a frustrating experience which made the child sore all over.
Fate intervened at this point in the form of one Dr Sundaram, whom Asna chanced to meet in the hospital. The doctor too had lost a leg, but to a car accident. He seemed like a magician to the little girl. His magic was his artificial limb which he would pull up, take out and do all sorts of wonders with. He could walk well too. Dr Sundaram shared his secret with her, said Asna. And that was the turning point.
“All others can walk and run only on their legs. They don’t have a leg like yours. You can take it off and put it on whenever you like or as you wish. Yours is a magic leg,”, said the doctor. From that day on, Asna started holding her leg in reverence. She became a sort of model for others who had also lost their limbs. The doctors would take Asna with them to bolster up the confidence in others. “Look at her, watch her smile,” they would tell patients who seemed to have lost hope.
Now that she had almost overcome her disability and learned to walk on her new limb, Asna went back to school. Most often her father would carry her, but at times, she would turn defiant and demand that she be allowed to walk.
One of her happy moments was when actor Unni Mary, of yesteryear fame came calling at the hospital. This was one story which Asna loved to narrate over and over. Though Neethu and Soorya were her besties at school, it hurt her no end to see them running around. She then started joining in with small games. As for her school mates, they avoided playing those games of which Asna could not be a part.
At class five, Asna was shifted to East Valiyayi UP School. Her father would help her board the school bus and Sarala chechi from the school would help her alight.
The limb had to be changed every six months to suit the shift in her height and weight. Later, the change was effected only once a year. Asna’s holiday meant going to the hospital during her annual vacation for a brand new limb.
A limb to love
“There were days when my leg and my new limb used to be at war with one another,” muses Asna. The artificial limb would eat into her thighs and cause it to bleed. Many a day, Asna would be back home bleeding from her thighs, a sight which would move her mother to tears. When the limb was again fitted over the raw wound, it would fester. All thorough the physical agony, the young girl refused to let go. Gradually, the wound would heal. Asna hated the thought of skipping school and never allowed any lag in lessons.
As high school was quite far from her house, the family moved into a rented place near the school, once Asna was in class 10. Her father was ready to sacrifice all for his daughter’s education. And the daughter did not disappoint. She scored A-Plus in all subjects for SSLC . That was her gift to her father. She remembers her father hugging her and crying when the results were out.
From then on, it was a march forward. An 89% for plus-two and the entrance coaching in Thrissur, were factors which saw her confidence going up. Asna says her time in Thrissur was the first instance which took her away from her home. But help came from all quarters. Her hostel mates were more than willing to help. The medical entrance exam saw her winning the 18th rank in the category for the disabled.
The day Asna took her seat along with Batch 52 of Kozhikode Medical College, she could not help going back to those dark days and a fate not meant for many. It was the unbearable heaviness of that pain which made her want to be a doctor.
A heart full of gratitude
Not for a moment has the doctor forgotten the innumerable number of helping hands that lifted her up. The family got a new house, thanks to the initiative of the District Congress Committee. The townsfolk went round collecting money for her treatment and opened an account in her name. And the money for limb replacement came from this source. When the authorities realised she could not take the stairs at the medical college, the Government got a lift installed just for Asna. Realising her pain and difficulty, the then principal Raveendran got her accommodation in the PG students hostel quite close to the college. Asna has only warm words for the present present principal Dr Rajendran and vice principal Dr Prathap.
“I just don’t have words enough to thank all my teachers and all the departments, especially the department of surgery for its unstinted support and help,” says Dr Asna.
Once, they brought a man to the casualty who happened to be the victim of a bomb blast. Though it brought back a lot of memories, Asna stayed unfazed. There’s another person here in the medical college who moves around with an artificial limb. He’s Nagaland native Visago, who lost a leg to a train accident. Then there’s Ashitha from Kannur who lost both her legs in a bus accident. Ashitha too moves around on her artificial limbs. Another blast victim is Poornachandran, a rag picker, who lost his sight when he tried to open an abandoned box. It was in fact a steel bomb which ripped apart his eyes.
Kannur today is still what it was years ago, full of gore and violence. She voted once when she turned 18. No more. Politics least interests her.
A long road ahead
The German-made limb, sponsored by US-based Malayali Johnson Samuel was fitted in 2015. She takes it off while bathing and sleeping. Each time it’s taken off, Asna has to massage her leg with oil to prevent the limb from biting into the flesh. Now that she’s grown into a young woman and is almost sure that she won’t get any taller, the limb need not be re-crafted every year. All the same, she has to watch her weight. Or else, the limb is sure to be at loggerheads with the thigh.
Asna is doing her house surgency and has set her eyes on a PG in surgery. Being a house surgeon calls for a lot of running around, something which Asna does with grace despite the occasional discomfort.
To this day, Asna’s father comes to the college to take her home. The two surgeries he’s had is no matter of concern to him. But Asna is very much concerned about her father’s health. Her brother Appu is into BSc nursing. Her cousins Manu and Ashokan are a strong support base for Asna and her family.
Asna would love to travel … all by herself. As a first step towards being truly independent, she’s taking driving classes. She has not given a thought to marriage. That can wait. What matters more are her parents and her brother Appu. And Asna has a lot more to do. She has a long way to go. But win, she will.
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