Preethi Sreenivasan hands over a brochure of Soulfree, a trust she has set up for quadriplegics, with a mischievous smile. “I have given this to many people who, by the way, have left it behind.” It is no ordinary brochure, she says. “I like to say, like in the movies, ‘no fingers were used in the making of this brochure’.” It was designed using a voice-activated software. Talking to Preethi gives perspective on many things, but mostly tells us how to take the bumps of life gracefully and cribbing a little less.
A freak accident, when she was 18, left her paralysed neck down. The State-level cricketer (under-19 for Tamil Nadu) went from being a figure of pride and admiration to an object of pity. “I had a blessed childhood and suddenly I had nothing. I was paralysed!” From a life filled with “infinite possibilities” she went to feeling “invisible”. In those dark days, she refused to get out of the house much less sit on a wheelchair and turned her back to the world. “If the world didn’t want me, I didn’t want the world either.”
Preethi speaks of herself, and others like her with disabilities, as being ‘positively-abled’. Unfazed by what life has thrown at her, she talks about living with disability with poise; her mother sitting nearby watches over her. When Preethi says nobody is a 100% perfect, her mother says, “There is no need to be, perfection is nothing. You have to accept people as they are.” Preethi was in town to speak at the TEDx Talk held at Choice School last week.
A quarter million quadriplegics live in the United States of America, she says. “In India no statistics are available. The Indian government doesn’t consider spinal cord injury as a specific disability, it is pooled under orthopaedic disability. It is not just that you can’t walk, you are completely paralysed—you don’t have bowel or urine control.” Lack of medical insurance, facilities for rehabilitation and very few speciality hospitals that are equipped to take care of those with spinal cord injuries make a quadriplegic’s life in India tough, she says. Most are, anyway, invisible.
As she went from “why me?” to “what am I going to do?” to “I don’t want any part of this life”, her father showed her the way. The family had moved to Thiruvannamalai from Chennai. “He told me, ‘don’t think of this as punishment. Think of it as an opportunity. Go within yourself and find something that cannot be taken by external circumstances.’ I found what I call ‘equi-poise’. I am at peace with myself.” She found a ‘greater purpose’—being the voice of an invisible segment of society.
Around the time she lost her father, she was left with her mother and a grandmother to take care of. In the aftermath of his sudden death she had to find a means of livelihood. She says with pride that she supports her family; she works with a film-based website moviebuff.com. “I use the computer completely independently, using speech activated software.”
All the while her mother would tell her to ‘be the change’, but for Preethi, at that point in time, it was unthinkable.
The final push came when she heard of two young women, both with spinal cord injury, who committed suicide in Thiruvannamalai district. Families with quadriplegics, especially women, encourage suicide. She says, “Families leave poison next to them so that they can do the deed. Families are ostracised if there is a severely disabled member. The plight of women is bleaker. It made me wonder, if that could happen in my tiny world what about elsewhere. I decided to be part of the solution,” Preethi says. That is how Soulfree came to be.
Dreams Preethi has many. One is an inclusive (and sustainable) village where those with spinal cord injuries and other severe disabilities have a place to live in without fear and with dignity, set up businesses and employ them. She speaks of a rehabilitation centre, for which she is awaiting government sanction. She has many dreams, all of which she hopes to realise. “I am one of the crazy people who believe that they can change the world. I will try as long as I have breath in my body.”
About Soulfree
Soulfree provides a monthly stipend to quadriplegics and the severely disabled a monthly stipend besides provide basics such as medical care, wheel chairs, medical mobility aids, air beds wherever those in need are. The focus is, however, on providing employment opportunities in order to make quadriplegics independent by impart necessary skills. Conference calls ensure that they keep in touch and don’t feel more lonely and alienated than what they must already feel. Soulfree does not collect donations, instead Preethi raises funds through speaking assignments - motivational and leadership, “I don’t take any money for myself. I ask the companies to give it to the trust, which they do as part of their CSR initiative.” So far Soulfree has distributed more than 100 wheelchairs. For more www.soulfree.org
