Siddappa
Some time ago, a little miracle took place in a small dust blown village in the Northern District of Raichur in Karnataka: a boy stood up on his own feet and walked a few faltering steps.
For the people who watched him walk those few steps, it was an amazing transformation. A boy whom they had hardly noticed as he slithered around their village on his hands, knees and stomach took on recognisable shape as a human being.
Siddappa was born to Hanumaiah and Durgamma, a poor farming couple who live a precarious existence on the 3 acres of dry land that they have leased. Both parents regularly work as labourers to supplement their agricultural income. Sabanna, their first son, joined them as a labourer when he was 10 years old.
When Siddappa was born in 1981, the parents rejoiced, he was another pair of hands that would soon grow up to strengthen the family's ability to survive. A year later, disaster struck. Siddappa fell ill. The doctor to whom the parents took Siddappa to, failed to diagnose that Siddappa had been affected with Polio Myletis. He was instead treated for common fever. The medication accelerated and reinforced the polio virus, and Siddappa lost use of both his lower limbs as he came down with Post-Polio Residual Paralysis.
Siddappa was one of the luckier ones; he did not die. Siddappa lived and he crawled. As he grew, he soon became a familiar figure as he dragged himself around to all the happenings in the village on his hands, knees and stomach.
Unfortunately, the more independent that Siddappa grew, the worse his deformity became. From just being useless, his paralysed legs began to twist themselves into impossible angles as contractures developed and affected his hips, knees and ankles.
When Leigh Sato an American Physiotherapist and SCI volunteer, and Narayan Swamy, a disability worker from Roshni Welfare Association for the Blind, first met Siddappa, he seemed too severe a case to work with. It was a little later as they found their own feet, that attention returned to Siddappa. Neither Siddappa nor his parents had any idea of what could be done. So as a first step, Siddappa was invited to spend some time with other disabled children at the Shradanjali Integrated School run by the Association of the Physically Handicapped in Bangalore. Siddappa fell in love with a wheelchair. In the beginning, with no faith that his twisted limbs could ever be straightened, he believed that his best option for mobility was to be pushed around. It was only sometime later as he spent more time watching other children,that he began to believe that he could perhaps also walk on his own.
Siddappa underwent Soft Tissue Contracture Release surgey at the Hinduja Sindhi Hospital at Bangalore. An operation and two stretchings later, Siddappa was fitted out with calipers at APH's Orthotic Centre.
11 years after he had first taken his first few unsteady steps as a toddler, Siddappa took his next step. And another. And another.
(Siddappa today works in the Orthotics Workshop managed by Samarthya.) .
