LUCKNOW: A differently abled village boy from Karnataka to an engineer to a 2007 IAS officer who served as district magistrate of Prayagraj during Kumbh 2019 to now a gold medallist in
para-badminton
at the recently concluded international championship in Brazil. Like every other stage in his life, Suhas Lalinakere Yathiraj, 36, left the stage of
TEDx Lucknow
on Sunday evening after he had inspired all and sundry with his saga of adversities and accomplishments.
“My first game in 2016 was against world No. 5. After trailing in the first round, I came back with a bang and became the first unranked para-badminton player to win gold in the Beijing championship,” Suhas told his audience. “The lesson here is that it is not the fall that matters, but how you get up and move ahead,” added the first-ever serving Indian bureaucrat to win gold for India in an international meet.
Usha Vishwakarma
, the founder of Lucknow’s Red Brigade that teaches women self defence, took the stage next and made jaws drop with tales of true grit. “In 2006, a co-worker had tried to rape me. Ever since, I have been educating and training girls for such situations of unexpected assault. We have come up with our own technique of self-defence called ‘Nishastra Kala’ (weapon-less skill), which we are spreading far and wide,” Usha said followed by a demo by her team.
Kalyani Saha Chawla
, originally from Kolkata and now in Delhi, motivated everyone at TEDx Lucknow to take risks and challenge oneself when opportunities come knocking.
“I am a self-confessed serial entrepreneur, juggling everything from marketing to fashion to writing to exporting to building — and all these because I believe in myself,” she said. Concerned over India’s increasingly toxic air, IIT-Delhi graduate
Prateek Sharma
revealed how he became an
entrepreneur
to build the country’s first cost-effective nasal filter against the finest particles that harm the respiratory system.
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