Use your Disability to your Advantage

Ribhu and Riju, both friends and competitors were boarding the bus to go to the sports stadium to compete against each other. As their friendship was time tested, so was their competitive battles. Both were good at the sprints, the 100 metres and 200 metres races and also participated in the jumps. They also competed against each other in the discussion and javelin throws. Sometimes Ribhu would win and other times it would be Riju who came out victorious. Till the time they had reached college, they were good friends otherwise than on the field where there was only competition. 

In college, they both became friends with Lina, their classmate at their graduation level. There was a certain attraction in Lina that drew both Ribhu and Riju towards her. The on the field competition between the two continued in the college days.

Now because of Lina, there arose a different competition between the friends. Both of them tried to be good to the member of the fairer sex and as a result, an unwarranted rivalry took root. Lina was aware of the dilemma among the two boys in her life. She enjoyed the adulation and tried to capitalise the attention she got resulting in the birth of a deep rift between the two friends.

The competition which was present in the sports field now spilled over in their social life. Ribhu, the more extrovert of the two friends seemed to draw closer to Lina. Knowing this development, Riju became a little jealous but did not let the envy bog him down. He in turn focused his attention on the sport's field where his performance took a quantum leap. Riju beat Ribhu with a wide margin in all sporting events they both took part. Now it was the turn of Ribhu to get jealous. Lina wanted to exploit this difference in the level of performance between Ribhu and Riju. Because she knew that ultimately she would have to settle down with one. But she purposefully kept the boys guessing on her likes between the two. Because this way she could get her work done and attract a certain amount of attention from both of them. This was the major cause of the deepening rivalry between the two.

But, unfortunately, the great divide between the two erstwhile friends became deeper and deeper and became so acerbated that now they turned into terrible enemies. Now they constantly kept plotting on ways to harm the other one.

As fate would have it, Riju met with a road accident. He was lucky enough to survive but his lower limbs became some what paralysed so that he became confined to a wheel chair. But with the grace of God and with expert physiotherapy he could get back the senses in his legs. So Riju could do away with the wheel chair. At this stage Lina felt that Riju had recovered enough to claim his place as a competitor to gain her love. So she now became very envious because she now had developed more liking for Ribhu. For Riju, Lina had just pity and sorrow and now she could never share her love with him. Both Ribhu and Riju knew this. Ribhu felt a tad sorry for Riju as he being deprived of the attention he got from Lina. Riju on knowing this felt more at pains on thinking that a friendship of so many years with Ribhu being put up at stake for the whims of a woman. 

Riju and Ribhu started to avoid each other consciously. But Riju felt very dejected with himself and life in general because he was a simpleton and never liked any tricks of diplomacy. 

So being in a weaker mind set one day, Riju had touched a live wire in the club where he practiced everyday. He felt a high voltage electric current flow through his hand and because of it now there was a growing numbness in one of his arms. Unfortunately, Riju did not receive medical help timely. So this problem became more aggravated in the time to come. Then the doctors found out some problems with his wrist of his right hand. To his utter dismay the doctors decided to amputate his wrist because due to the electric shock treatment given to his wrist had permanently damaged the nervous system there. This was a life shattering trauma for Riju. His dreams of participating in the national sports event was now an unachievable dream. First his legs and now his right hand without the wrist. A medical investigation revealed gross negligence on the part of a section of medical staff in a hospital who were all put under suspension. But the loss which had been meted out to Riju would not go away this life time.

Due to the life shattering loss to Riju, now Ribhu had become very meek and apologetic to him. Even Lina stopped her competitive and selective love game. Riju now understood that due to his physical disability he could never woo for the love of Lina. So he put it totally aside giving a new meaning to his life devoid of a woman's love.

It took almost two months for Riju to get back to normal life and almost six months of intense therapy and counselling to get over this depression. All this while he maintained a steady distance from both Ribhu and Lina. For he knew that to keep himself in good mental health he must keep himself free from any toxic relationship.

Then one day Riju met a life coach Rita who had a deep influence over his mind.

'' Use your disability to your advantage '', this is what she would say. This coach counselled Riju for the next few weeks and helped him overcome this huge trauma of the feeling of disability. In the time to come this mental coach and Riju would become very dear friends and another love would be rekindled. This would be future wife of Riju then introduced him to an athletics coach who trained athletes with physical disability.

With the help of this coach Riju started practicing to throw the javelin that is earmarked for the athletes with physical disabilities. With real seriousness now Riju had set his eyesight and target to participate in the Paralympics game of 2024 to be held in Paris. To get a podium finish, Riju knew that he had to practice hard and put in lot of effort. Now having a world class counsellor Rita as his wife, Riju knew that any challenge could be won.