DEEPA MALIK - FIRST INDIAN WOMAN MEDALIST IN RIO PARALYMPICS
WON SILVER MEDAL FOR SHOT PUT
Paralympic
Games silver medal winner Deepa Malik is “Spirit in Motion”.
Learn
to adapt.“I could have sat and cried,” says Malik referring
to the time in 1999 when a spinal tumour paralysed her from the waist down.
Instead, after three major spinal surgeries, she focused on adapting to her new
wheelchair-bound body. “I made what was left stronger. I made my arms
stronger.”
Don’t stop learning. Malik
continuously pushes herself to learn new things. In 2013, she drove 3,278km
from Chennai to Delhi. A few years before that she drove across nine
high-altitude passes in nine days on India’s highest motorable road in Ladakh
as a participant in the gruelling Raid de Himalaya rally. She’s won several
international medals in javelin and shot put. She’s swum upstream in the Yamuna
using her arms and shoulders to compensate for her legs. In the backstroke
position, she pushes her lower hip upwards to stay afloat. She can’t judge
where her lower body is headed so she needs a coach to direct her. “Actually,
I’m not clear how I do it either,” she says.
Never
give up. It took her 19 years to obtain a licence to
drive in the car rally.
Age
is irrelevant. At 45, she was the oldest member
of the country’s Paralympic Games team this year. She began taking sports
seriously at 36. She is the only Indian woman to take part in the Games—ever.
“People look at you the way you look at yourself. I’m 18 till I die,” she says.
She’s already begun thinking of her next big event, the ICC World ParaAthletics
Championships in London in July.
Don’t
make excuses. “I’m a solutions person,” she
says. She has the ability to quickly shift to Plan B. In recent years, Malik
has switched back and forth from javelin to shot put in international
tournaments (winning medals in both) because different major events offer a
different sport per disability category, depending on the number of
participants every year. For her category, the Paralympic Games only offered
shot put, not javelin. “If I don’t multitask I lose out,” she says.
Cultivate
passions. Malik believes you need more than your day
job and the skills your education has helped you acquire—you need hobbies and
passions. “They become your secret source of happiness. I have been able to
identify these in my life,” she says. She’s spent the last two decades testing
her adrenalin junkie self. She loves to be behind the wheel and drives every
day from her home in Gurgaon to her training in south Delhi. “When I drive, I
don’t feel paralysed. Movement is in my control. It gives me a sense of
freedom,” she says. On Sundays, she takes her custom-made motorcycle for a
spin.
Don’t
worry about feeling low. “Your lows should be a jumpstart,”
she says. A way to prepare for the highs. She says she uses the lows as a way
to understand her shortcomings . “The purpose of sadness is not to demoralize
yourself but to evaluate where you are lacking so you can bounce back,” she
says.
Learn
from the army. Malik’s father and husband were
both colonels in the Indian Army. Being part of that life taught her to be
prepared for the unseen and focus on her priorities. “When you’re in battle
mode, nothing comes between you and your duty,” she says. This attitude helped her
focus on preparing for the Paralympics. “There was no melodrama about my
absence from family life during the year. Everyone understood, that’s what faujis do.”
Parent
by example. Malik’s disability needs body
management and over the years her daughters Devika and Ambika have been her
physiotherapists and her nurses. They’ve been helping her bathe since they were
toddlers. “They’ve seen how difficult it is for their mother to pass urine and
yet they’ve watched her train furiously,” she says.
Bring
up sporty girls. Girls and sports is the biggest
and the best short cut to women’s empowerment, Malik believes. “Every time a
sporty girl takes the time out to play, she’s learning the art of balancing,”
she says. Other things sports teach girls? A competitive spirit, how to take
defeat, how to celebrate your win with the person you have defeated, teamwork,
confidence and the ability to stay fit.
Don’t
think it’s easy. She trains 24x7. Everything is key from
the time she wakes up to the time she sleeps. She has to manage her bladder and
bowel movements. She doesn’t have torso or stomach muscles so she has to time
her light meals carefully. Every time she trains, she has to follow that with a
prolonged physiotherapy session to relieve the spasms.
Believe
in a cause. Malik is passionate about
paraplegic rights in the country with her Ability Beyond Disability movement.
From Live mint - epaper
