Recently I was asked to preside over a humble function, attended by about 100 people, most of them rural poor. It was to release a book written by Sr Rachel Oommen, who was elected in July this year the Vicar General of the ICM (Immaculati Cordis Mariae –Immaculate Heart of Mary) Sisters. The book is a simpler, edited version of her M.Th dissertation, guided by Fr Leonard Fernando, SJ, Principal, Vidya Jyoti College of Theology. It is about a creative ministry, started by Sr Chandra and a few other ICM Sisters, a little more than 25 years ago.
The Sakthi Centre chooses poor Dalit girls, most of them school drop-outs, and trains them in Dalit and other folk arts, while helping them continue and complete their school or college education. With a place and chance to develop their God-given talents, the girls gain self esteem and confidence, and are soon able to display their talents in cultural programmes presented by the Centre. Sakthi has presented more than 1,000 well-appreciated cultural programmes in quite a few States in India and other countries like the U.S., Korea and Japan. Their songs and dances declare that inequality and injustice have no place in God’s dream for the humans he created and in his kingdom that Jesus proclaimed. It is a delightful and creative way of empowering the young Dalit women.
In my speech at the end of the function, I told them about a candle burning bright in the dark – a shining light they will do well to keep gazing at. I told them the extra-ordinary story of the 22-year old Mariyappan Thangavelu (MT), who became India’s only gold medalist in the recently concluded 2016 Summer Paralympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.
MT grew up in a remote village in Salem district of Tamil Nadu, in a family burdened by poverty. His father abandoned the family soon after the children were born and so his mother, Saroja, had to raise her children as a single mother, working as an agricultural labourer, a coolie helping the mason and an employee in a brick kiln, earning enough to give her five children one meal a day. At the age of five, while walking to his school, Mariyappan was run over by a drunk bus driver. “My right leg remains stunted — it is still a five-year-old’s leg; it has never grown or healed,” he told a reporter recently. Other students refused to take him into their teams, and so he would train on his own when they all left and come back home bruised and bleeding. The only treatment his poor mother could afford was to apply turmeric powder on his wounds.
Mr Rajendran, the physical education instructor in his school, was the first to notice his ability and enthusiasm and encourage him to try high jumping. At the age of fourteen, he began to compete in local events and soon came appreciation and awards. In 2013, the Bangaluru-based coach, Satyanarayana, noticed his performance at the Indian national para-athletics championships, and adopted him as his student in 2015. In March 2016, MT cleared a distance of 1.78 metres in the men’s high jump T42 event in Tunisia to qualify for the Rio Paralympics, at which he won the gold medal with a leap of 1.89 metres. He will receive Rs 75 lakhs earmarked for the gold medalists by the Sports Ministry. This might surprise you: MT, who grew up in poverty and whose mother still sells vegetables to make a living, has pledged Rs 30 lakhs of this prize money to his school in his village!
By telling them the real life story of MT, this is what I wanted to convey to the students of Sakti: ‘Whatever may be your handicaps and setbacks, despite the villains that you may meet in your life – like, in the case of MT, the irresponsible father who abandoned his wife and children and the drunken bus driver who ran over him – you may become an achiever. Dreams, determination and dedication will make you a hero.’
– Fr. A. Joe Antony, S.J. is at present editor, Jivan, the magazine of South Asian Jesuits and the executive secretary of and adviser to the Provincial Superior of Jesuits in Tamil Nadu. For 20 years he edited the New Leader and gave it a new life and reputation
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