A brave new world, on wheels

The smart and handsome young lad was the cynosure of all eyes not only in his college but also in the neighbourhood in Thiruvananthapuram.
No wonder then that Gokul Retnakar was one of those drafted in to help a couple of toddy tappers from Cherthala who had been badly hurt in an accident. Not only did he spend the whole night at the hospital where they were taken to but also joined the party that took them back to their place in a taxi.Badly sleep-deprived, he had curled up in the back seat and did not realise it when the driver too fell asleep and the car careened off the road after hitting a tree.
When he woke up, he found himself in the medical college in Thiruvananthapuram. External injuries did not seem all that serious but when he tried to turn in his bed, it was extremely painful. He was taken there in an ambulance in the wee hours of July 23, 2006, but it was only the evening that a scan confirmed that he had suffered a bad spinal cord injury which meant there was no motor movement or sensation below his chest.
He was moved to a private hospital in Thiruvananthapuram first before being shifted to a reputed one in Kochi where a surgery was performed a few months later. “The fracture in the vertebra can be rectified but there is no cure for spinal cord injury,” says Gokul but he didn’t know this then and went on hoping for a ‘cure’ for years.
“Once this happens, it is like entering a new world and embracing a new kind of existence. But it is not easy to accept the condition. My college was a stone’s throw from my home and I used to be active in student politics, so there were always my friends during the recovery period. This perhaps saved me from becoming depressed but the pitfall of hoping against hope is that rehabilitation also gets delayed,” says Gokul.
Three years after the accident, the wheel-chair bound Gokul enrolled for a law degree. Three of his male friends, who were staying in hostels, moved in with him and helped him get on with his ‘new’ life, one of complete dependency. “Thanks to this arrangement, I never became lonely and my mother did not have to shoulder the entire responsibility of looking after me,” he says. “But the downside was that there was no privacy of any kind, not even for a moment.”
He passed the law degree but even more importantly, he came to terms with the fact that his condition was not something that could be reversed. Videos that he saw helped, especially of someone with a similar condition driving a vehicle. He too learnt to drive, after fitting hand controls in his car. “When I could drive, it gave me independence to a large extent and once, I even drove till Bengaluru,” he says.
An unexpected setback happened when his girlfriend, who continued to be in touch with him for a few years after his accident, bid goodbye one day, after her marriage had been fixed. “It came as a big blow. I guess she must have been hoping that I would get back my limb movements. I can understand her decision but my disappointment is only that she did not communicate it to me properly,” he says.
What helped not only to ameliorate this pain but also to take his life to a new level was an affair with a girl called Meenu who eventually became his life partner. Meenu, listening silently till now, takes over the narration: “I was doing my MSc and had an affair with another man who was Gokul’s friend. That was how I got to know him and we became close friends. Our relationship became stronger after my boyfriend broke up with me, citing religious differences. My folks were against it when I told them that I wanted to marry Gokul, so we went ahead and registered our marriage. I went back to my house but my brother threw me out, so I joined Gokul and eventually, my parents organised a function to formalise our union.” Now, they have moved to a separate house to lead their life together, according to their own terms.
For Gokul, the parameters of choosing a partner had changed drastically. “If skin-deep beauty was a factor earlier, what you looked for in the changed circumstances was whether the person would be with you life-long. There is deeper understanding and mental compatibility between us,” he says. Meenu, who is on the verge of earning her PhD in life sciences, says that what she likes about their relationship is that she gets enough ‘space’ as a person and more freedom than in a typical restrictive set-up. “I have sympathy for the way he suffered but not only that. I am happy to be with him in this journey,” she says.
A journey they undertook recently was to China for 10 days, where Meenu had a botanical conference to attend. “I found the place so disabled-friendly and that it was easy to visit places, do shopping and so on,” says Gokul. “On the other hand, here everything is done for namesake. Some buildings may have a ramp but that’s all. There is still no awareness, no sensitivity.”