A freak accident turned a bright, bubbling Preethi Srinivasan into a quadriplegic overnight. Her struggle has also been her parents’ struggle, and the positivity she received from them keeps her going. This is her touching tribute to her late father who is still her source of strength and courage.
I'm an only child. I was born nine years after my parents were married, and that too after a great deal of prayer and penance. My father had a very macho, tough-man image, but it was, in reality, nothing more than a defence mechanism. He had a very soft and kind heart, a fact that was especially obvious from a story my grandmother shared with me, secretly of course! She said that when my mother was screaming with agony, as she was trying to deliver me, my father was nowhere to be found! Then, when somebody went in search of him, they found him standing behind a tree, near the window of my mother's delivery room, furiously wiping away his tears, because he couldn't bear to hear my mother in such pain.
My father, Mr. N. Srinivasan was an electrical engineer from the prestigious Anna University and was elected in his final year to represent the students. While he had a tremendous fear of public speaking, the speech he gave in front of the students just before the elections turned out to be so impactful that he won by a landslide margin. When I first began public speaking, my father was incredibly appreciative, and almost stood in awe and admiration that I could do it so effortlessly, whereas just the thought of it filled his heart with fear!
In the early 1980s, he moved to the software field and was one of the first Indians to be trained in the ERP package, SAP by the company he worked for, for more than 25 years, Siemens.
He had a tremendous love for the English language and from a very early age, he inspired me to develop a love for the language as well. He encouraged me to become an avid reader and also taught me to always keep a book with me to note down any words that I didn't know the meaning of. Then, he would say, "At the end of the day, you must check the dictionary for the words you have noted down and to better understand the nuances of the language, you must use the same word in at least three different sentences." It was he who taught me to have a strong work ethic, to be true to my word, to value time – whether it be my own or others', and last but not the least, to enjoy the simple things in life like nature, animals and music.
TRUE FRIENDSHIP
From the very beginning, we had a very special relationship; we were best friends who could frankly discuss anything and everything, somehow, we were also each other's yardstick for success, because for some weird reason, my father needed my approval most of all, just as I needed his.
Even when I was very young, he would patiently explain concepts to me, never placating my questions with simplistic answers. I would stand in front, while he rode the scooter, and we would discuss matters that most people might think would be inappropriate for a child that age. For example, one day I asked the question, "What is black money, Appa?" He did not give me a silly answer, but actually explained in detail about honesty, integrity and the complex process through which money becomes "black money". He was a real role model for me, in fact, my parents are my best role models. The kind of love and upbringing they provided me ensured that I never felt the need to rebel. All my life, all I've ever wanted was to become somebody they could be proud of, and till today, this is what keeps me going!
UNCONDITIONAL LOVE AND SUPPORT
He loved me and encouraged me in every way possible. When I was just three years old, he took me to the swimming pool and ensured that I would become technically well-trained in every style of swimming, because that had been his dream, and he had never had the opportunity to fulfil it.
When I expressed my interest in cricket at just five years of age, he never said, "You are a girl, you cannot play cricket." He immediately took me to the best coach in our area, and allowed me to be the only girl amongst 300 boys. For years together, he woke up at five in the morning to take me either for swimming practice or for cricket coaching, and he would scream, "Pull, preethi pull" until his voice became hoarse at my swimming competitions, even though he very well knew that I could not hear him underwater. He would actually say, "Even if you want to be a mechanic, I will support you, but you should be so passionate about it that you become the world's best mechanic!"
"YOUR LOVE IS MY MEDICINE"
Then, when I had an accident that completely destroyed my life and turned me into a quadriplegic, I was unable to use my hands or legs and I was forced to use a wheelchair, it must have completely shattered him, but he never left my side, not for a moment. He would sit with me for hours on end and try to read spiritual books to me. When I was sick with fever, he would sit and read Harry Potter novels because I just didn't have the energy.
When we slowly understood that my condition was something I was just going to have to learn to live with, as we later found out that spinal cord injury does not have a cure anywhere in the world, he was the one who inspired me to look beyond the body and enquire into the self. He said, "This body is perishable for everyone. Everybody is going to have to deal with its deterioration at some point or the other. Think of this as an opportunity, go beyond the body. Try to see if you cannot find something that can't be taken away by external circumstance; try to connect with your soul and realise your True Nature that is limitless and eternal." I used to argue with him and refuse to listen as he read about the great enlightened masters. I would say, "What use is this to me? Can it take my pain away or can the masters come and help me walk again?" In my pain, I would refuse to sit in the wheelchair; I didn't want to be alive, but my father and my mother never gave up on me. And, if I'm alive today and leading a life of dignity and purpose, the credit goes to them. It was their unconditional, unquestioning love and patience that healed me and gave me a reason to live.
LIFE ALTERING EVENT
Then, on June 11, 2007 an event happened that can never be erased from my heart. My father had pushed me about 3 km from our house for a doctor's appointment, but the doctor was unavailable. On our return, my father decided to take a shortcut, perhaps because he was very tired, but would never reveal that. Unfortunately, the road had been dug up by the municipality and the debris from one side of the road had been strewn haphazardly on the other side.
For some inexplicable reason, I had a strong sense of foreboding; I felt that we needed to avoid that particular road at all costs, that if we were to travel on it, something very bad was going to happen. In fact, I knew for a certainty that I was going to fall. So, I begged my father not to take that route. I told him that even if it were longer, we should take the tar road because that would make pushing the wheelchair easy. However, he silenced all my arguments with one statement. He said, "Don't worry, I will take care of you. As long as I'm here, nothing bad can happen to you."
However, nothing he could say actually diminished my sense of dread. I ended up blurting out, "God only knows why we are taking this road, we're going to die." But, even I did not know how powerful and true my premonition really was.
My father began pushing my wheelchair over the little stones and boulders. When he started finding it difficult to push the wheelchair over them, he turned the wheelchair around so that the larger wheels in the back could go over the stones with more ease. While trying to manoeuvre the wheelchair, he had to turn around and look to see where he was going. In the meantime, the wheelchair slid away from him and turned over to the side, throwing me out of it.
When I fall, I fall like a dead weight, without any control or ability to break the fall and thereby minimise the damage. Well, if you are wondering, yes, there are ways to fall so that you don't get hurt. And, as a seasoned sportsperson, I instinctively knew what to do, but my body just wasn't cooperating. So, I fell with a thud and soon many people from the nearby huts came out to help us.
As I had already known with certainty that I was going to fall, I was not surprised, only relieved. I said, "I guess we had to have that adventure. This was meant to happen, but look at God's mercy and grace, even though anything could have happened, I hardly have a scratch on my body." I was very happy that we had gone through the test and had come away without much damage.
We started on our path, back home. Then, my father quietly said, "Look at my sense of ego, my sense of control. I felt with so much certainty that as long as I was around, nothing bad could ever happen to you, but, even before I knew what was happening, you had already fallen. So much for control!" That's when it struck me that he had been holding on to powerful guilt in his heart that he wasn't around during my accident, that, had he been there, he could have saved me somehow. All those years, the guilt had been eating into him, but in the moment he realised that he did not have control over my fate, that whatever was meant to happen would happen anyway, something in him just realised the truth and must have surrendered to it.
THE FREEDOM TO MOVE ON
We continued walking on, talking casually. We even met a neighbour to whom my father had promised he would find a black puppy. He told the man, that he had already identified a really cute, little puppy, and that he would bring it to him the next day. I was a little restless because I wanted to make sure that I was completely unhurt. As long as my clothes were on, we could not rule out that no bone was broken or no other injury had been sustained. So, we soon went home, my father helped my mother transform me into the wheelchair and change my clothes. It was then that his body seemed to lose all energy and he just lied down on the floor.
He didn't say anything, but when my mother touched him to invite him for dinner, his body seemed ice-cold. He had sustained a complete, silent heart attack of all four arteries. When my mother and I begged him to go to the doctor, he refused. He said that they would ask him to go to the hospital and he did not want to leave Thiruvannamalai. My mother and I were desperate, so we called a doctor home, but he immediately said that it was serious and that my father would have to be taken to the hospital. At the local clinic, they could not stabilise him because the blood pressure was just too low. That night he was taken to the Christian Medical College Hospital in Vellore, but they could not do anything for him. His dead body arrived in a mortuary van the next afternoon.
Somehow, nothing would be the same any more because I could not remain my father's little girl any longer; that phase of my life was over. Now, suddenly, it was time for me to grow up and become the decision maker of the family. I told my mother not to cry. I told her, "Appa has completed his test, he has realised and is free now. If we cry, he will never be able to move on peacefully. We need to let him go whole-heartedly. What is to come is our test, but we need to let him go now." What was almost completely unbearable was that I could not even touch him or kiss him goodbye from my wheelchair. I asked my mother to give him a kiss on his forehead on my behalf, and she did.
TRUE IMMORTALITY IS LIVING IN THE HEARTS OF LOVED ONES
I don't feel my father has gone anywhere. He lives in my heart; he smiles when I smile, his undying love for me sustains and strengthens me every moment. My father, my mother and I lived like we were one soul in three bodies; especially after the accident, our relationship became so deep and intimate, we were blessed to have each other. In this day and age, that kind of closeness is really rare and I feel that the challenges, the hardship and suffering only brought us closer together. June 12, 2016 was his ninth death anniversary, but his spirit is immortal and I'm the luckiest daughter on Earth to have had a father like him, to have parents who sacrificed everything, their days, their nights, their desires, their life so that I may live with dignity.
So, I salute my father and wish you all a very memorable and Fantastic Father's Day! If you are daughter or a son I beg you never to take your parents' love for granted. Tell them that you love them and make this Father's Day a memorable one.
Written by Preethi Srinivasan
Father's name: Srinivasan Narasimhan
Place: Thiruvannamalai, Tamil Nadu, India
