Before You Read: Ability Beyond Disability
What happens when athletes refuse to let the odds decide?
Imagine you are seventeen and you draw a bow not with your arms — because you were born without them — but with your feet and shoulder, and you hit the gold. That is Sheetal Devi, an Indian para-archer who won the Arjuna Award in January 2024. When you watch someone do what 'cannot be done', what shifts inside you? Does the word disability still mean what you thought it meant?
Don't think about pity. Think about skill, training, and willpower — the same things any champion has.
India made its Paralympics debut in 1968, and won its first medal — in swimming — in 1972. Since then, Indian para-athletes have won a growing haul of medals and honours. The athlete you're about to meet, Dr. Deepa Malik, became India's first-ever woman to win a Paralympic medal (silver in shot-put, Rio 2016) — and has been honoured with the Khel Ratna, the Arjuna Award, and the Padma Shri.
This chapter is an interview — a real conversation, in question-and-answer form, with a real person. Before you read, here are the words that carry its message of strength.
Eight words from the interview. Tap each to flip.
Q1.Resilience is the ability to:
Q1.Who is Sheetal Devi?
Imagine you are seventeen and you draw a bow not with your arms — because you were born without them — but with your feet and shoulder, and you hit the gold. That is Sheetal Devi, an Indian para-archer who won the Arjuna Award in January 2024. When you watch someone do what 'cannot be done', what shifts inside you? Does the word disability still mean what you thought it meant?
Don't think about pity. Think about skill, training, and willpower — the same things any champion has.
India made its Paralympics debut in 1968, and won its first medal — in swimming — in 1972. Since then, Indian para-athletes have won a growing haul of medals and honours. The athlete you're about to meet, Dr. Deepa Malik, became India's first-ever woman to win a Paralympic medal (silver in shot-put, Rio 2016) — and has been honoured with the Khel Ratna, the Arjuna Award, and the Padma Shri.
This chapter is an interview — a real conversation, in question-and-answer form, with a real person. Before you read, here are the words that carry its message of strength.
Eight words from the interview. Tap each to flip.
Q1.Resilience is the ability to:
Q1.Who is Sheetal Devi?