“These are the best days of my life,” says a thrilled Umadevi N. She has a reason to celebrate as she is the only person from Coimbatore to represent Tamil Nadu for the recent VI National Wheel-Chair Basketball Championship held at Mohali, Punjab . The team won silver losing to Maharashtra 25-14. “It was a tough game and this was my first National Tournament. Though I am a bit disappointed for losing the final match, I think it is a good beginning as it was only a year ago that I started playing,” she says. The 30-year-old who is a software engineer at Cognizant is wheelchair-bound. “It was an adverse reaction to the polio vaccine when I was three year old,” she explains. “So I spend most of my childhood days inside my room reading books.”
Resilience and team work That inspired Umadevi M Periasamy
It was her colleague Preethi who is part of the Sittruli Foundation who introduced her to basketball. “Sittruli encourages and helps people with special needs to engage in sports.I initially joined for fun. I never thought that I would take it up seriously or represent Tamil Nadu.” Umadevi found the practice sessions difficult in the beginning. “I was not used to any kind of physical exercise. So I had constant body ache for almost a month. I went through rigorous physiotherapy sessions to tone up . I usually use a motorised wheel chair , so handling the manual sports wheelchair was also a challenge. I practise for nearly three hours with 12 others every Sunday at the Ganga Spine Injury Rehabilitation Centre, Koundampalayam.”
- Run-for-Wheels Marathon hopes to create awareness on para-sports among people
- Tickets: ₹500 for (for both five km and 10 km); ₹ 300 for children below 14 years (3 km). Free for people above 65 years of age and for those in a wheel chair.
- The proceeds go towards buying sports wheel chairs
- On July 21 at 6:00 am
- From Ganga Spine Injury Rehabilitation Centre, Koundampalayam.
- For details and registration: Visit https://www.sittruli.org/ or call 9489820099
Uma Devi had her first Zonal match at Chennai in March this year. “My team won gold and we were selected for the District level in April. We won the gold there as well. Expectations of every one increased and it was only then that I started taking basketball seriously.” This victory earned her a place at the two-month national training camp at Chennai for two months. “It was conducted every weekend. I travelled on a train after work for the sessions. While I was doing individual training, it was at the camp that I started to train as part of a team. I learnt different techniques on how to handle the ball there.”
Her biggest challenge was food, confesses Uma. “My body is sensitive to what I eat. Since I am not used to North Indian cuisine, I had difficulty in digesting it.”
But all that is in the past now declares Uma.“There was a time when I cursed my condition. But now, wheel-chair basketball has opened up a new world. I see more people like me and we share our experiences. My fitness levels have also improved. I had trouble with my body metabolism earlier, but now with regular workout, I am over it. I am a much happier person. I hope to represent India in the future.”
