A. Krithi Varma lost his limbs at the age of 4, when he suffered an electric shock while needling an overhead power line with a stick.
Ten years later, the 15-year-old student of the Government Higher Secondary School in Nedumaruthi has scored 437 marks in the Class X board exams. It was a long, arduous journey for Krithi, his mother Kasthuri and his primary school headmistress S. Anandhi. He wrote his exam holding the pen inbetween his amputated limbs.
Ms. Anandhi was canvassing for admissions when she spotted Krithi playing on the street with his amputated limbs. “I convinced his grandmother to send him to school, and assured her that I would teach him,” she says. “When I joined Class I, I found writing very difficult. But Anandhi ma’am put me on physiotherapy, after which I started to love writing. I then began to draw, play chess and dance,” Krithi says.
His mother Kasthuri, 40, breaks down as she recounts the surgeries Krithi underwent in the first two months after his limbs got infected, needing amputation. “Krithi’s father told the doctor that he didn’t want a son like this anymore, and that he should kill him. He abandoned us soon after. Anandhi madam helped him,” she says. “Initially, I bought him prosthetic hands, but he could not write with them. Anandhi ma’am said she will teach him to write,” she adds.
Asked about his goal in life, Krithi says, “I want to keep my mother happy and, after education, join a company...and do whatever I can to help others.”
Commending him, Chief Minister M.K. Stalin said the State government would arrange for a hand transplant.
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