On September 6, 2011, Sanju Ram’s life changed forever. Back then, he was a Havaldar with the Dogra Regiment of the Army. He was posted in Jammu and Kashmir, on deputation with 62 Rashtriya Rifles.
On that fateful autumn morning eight years ago, Mr. Ram was on a routine patrol with other soldiers when, around 10, a deafening explosion left him unconscious. It was a landmine blast. “Two days later, when I woke up in the 92 Base Hospital in Srinagar, both my legs had been amputated,” recalls Mr. Ram, who retired in 2018, following the recommendation of the medical board.
“Since then, my life has never been the same. After prosthetic implants, my whole existence now feels ‘artificial’. My artificial legs can in no way replace the original limbs. It’s not easy to cope. For almost everything I am now dependent on my family members. At times, it can be really so frustrating,” he says.
“I had to curb even my normal my eating habits to ensure that I do not put on extra weight. I can hardly relish my mutton curry these days, for fear that it would increase my weight, which I simply can’t afford these artificial limbs. I cannot do any field work now. It’s a struggle even to play ball with my children,” says the wheelchair-bound soldier.
Mr. Ram lives in Jogindernagar’s Makrana locality in Himachal Pradesh. He says he has stopped going to Karkuhi, his native village in Mandi district, because he finds it “humiliating that a soldier should be carried on a palanquin by others to reach his own village.” Karkuhi is 23 km from his residence.
“I have not visited my village for over three years now,” Mr. Ram says. “If I go, my relatives would have to carry me in a palanquin from the closest motorable road. That’s about 2 km of uneven roads to my ancestral house. I have therefore stopped visiting, though my mother, who is now very old, stays there.”
His family has been a great source of support, Mr. Ram says, praising his wife Sumna Devi.
“It took me months to come to terms with the new reality that the whole family was facing,” says Ms. Devi, a housewife.
Inside his three-room house, built on an uneven hill terrain, Mr. Ram manages to move around on his own. But outdoor mobility remains a hurdle.
Needed, help
“High-tech customised prosthetics are available in the market but they are too expensive for me. If the government were to offer some kind of subsidy on such artificial limbs, it would be really helpful, especially for people like me who have undergone double amputation,” said Mr. Ram.
