Sujith Koshy Varghese
doesn’t talk much about his life-shattering accident of March 31, 2013.
Because, by the time he came to his senses in the ICU, in a Bengaluru hospital, he had no memory of that day or the two days that followed when he was in coma. His brother whispered that he had an accident after he and a few friends set out on their bikes in Bengaluru, where he was studying at the time.
Doctors told Sujith’s parents that he only had a 40% chance of survival; the spine had a T6 level injury while the skull had 18 fractures. Even if he survived, they warned, he would not be able to see with his right eye; he would only have a poor memory and would never walk again. “They were wrong about the first two. And I am still trying to prove them wrong about the third,” says Sujith, five years later, over the phone from his home in Mavelikkara. He is on a short visit from Dubai where he lives and studies. “Because, the power to change any circumstance lies not with the doctors or other people but with the person himself.”
The battle with fate continues even though the wheelchair-bound young man of 25 knows that as things stand today, modern medicine has no cure for his condition.
He may be hoping against hope but he says that if he were to accept his ‘fate’, “then I am done and would not progress”. “Yes, there are moments when I think, ‘Oh man, it is a spinal cord injury and nobody has discovered anything’ and it does break me down. But I tell myself, there is a way, there has to be a way.”
The thing about accidents is that while it happens in a flash, the full impact on a person’s life unfolds bit by bit. “It happened two weeks before my final B Com exams,” he remembers. After about five weeks in the Bengaluru hospital where he had to undergo two major surgeries, he was moved to Vellore for rehabilitation. After a month there, Sujith and his mom came to their Mavelikkara home as the doctors said there was nothing else left to be done.
Someone then told them about a vaidyan who was supposed to have worked wonders on many and they decided to give it a try. “Just 20, I was into boxing and so active. I simply refused to accept that I was paralysed and was ready to do anything to get back on my feet.” But what followed was not massage but four months of daily torture. The vaidyan would apply oil and virtually hit him all over, promising that he would be alright soon. The pathyam (restrictive diet) was equally punishing; he was allowed wheat dosa and sugar in the morning and rice and bindi curry for lunch and nothing else.
Not only did the diet sap him of all his strength but he also started developing pressure sores which turned septic when the quack applied oil on them. When he started shivering uncontrollably, they called in a nurse who was aghast at the infection level after doing a blood test. He was back in the ICU and the doctors then did a series of plastic surgeries to heal the wounds.
“This was a big blow, to say the least. I recovered but had to face a lot of sympathy and negativity from everyone around me who kept saying that I can’t do this or that while I wanted to be independent,” he says. For instance, he wanted to sleep in his room upstairs but nobody liked the idea. But after wheeling himself to the steps, he climbed the 18 steps one by one before getting on to another wheelchair on top and went to his room. This routine was followed every single day of his stay in Kerala.
His life brightened after his dad took him to Dubai. In one of the most crucial decisions, he signed up at a nearby gym and started exercising regularly though many were sceptical that he wouldn’t be able to do much training. As his upper body gained strength, he got back his confidence too. If his mom took him there initially, he soon started going there all by himself. “Today, I take the metro and go on my own,” he says, proudly. He has even taken a plane journey without anyone to assist him. In 2015, he passed his B Com and is now studying for CFA and aspires to be an investment banker.
Life took another turn when a radio jockey called Kris Fade saw one of the gym videos that he has been posting on Instagram and invited him to his show. Later, Kris also made him share his experiences at an event and the video got shared by many. He has already been invited by several corporates to speak to their employees.
Is he on his way to become a motivational guru? “Honestly, I do not know. But I tell people that if I can do what I have been doing from a wheelchair, for instance: fitness, they have no excuse not to do it. I also talk to them about the importance of not giving up,” Sujith says.
That’s no empty boast. Besides hitting the gym every day, he also gets on to his cycle and his standing table where he tries to reactivate his legs. He has already tried acupuncture and chiropractic but in vain. “Twenty years down the line, if I am alive and still on a wheelchair, then I’ll know I have at least tried my 100%. Actually, I have just started.”
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