Maya Balakrishnan dreams of herself as a free-flying butterfly with large, scaly wings, without any worries. She loves to compare her mind to a butterfly’s, as in reality, she cannot fly freely. But she is not sad because her imagination takes her everywhere and touches everything that can be called infinite. Maya is a poet and 90 percent of her body is paralysed due to Chronic Rheumatoid Arthritis. She is a butterfly on her wheelchair.
For the past 30 years, she is suffering from RA paralysis. But there is no room for sadness or lethargic thoughts in her mind. With the two acclaimed books of poems she has produced, Maya has proved that nothing is impossible. With her lifelong struggle against paralysis, she has proven herself as a woman of almost superhuman fortitude and tenacity. In a rare public appearance, Maya talked to the world recently during an event on the eve of Women’s Day at Angamaly.
“People looked at me as an inspiring figure. Even with my disabilities, I have managed to come out and express my thoughts through my poems. It was nice to get honoured and know that my works are inspiring people,” she recalls of the event.
She was studying in Class X when she was diagnosed with the illness. Even when she was bedridden, she managed to pass the exam with a good score. Later on, it turned out to be literally impossible to move 90 per cent of her muscles due to the pain in her joints.
“It was very painful and I remember that I was struggling to move even my fingers,” she says. But even when she was bedridden, she was curiously analysing what is happening outside. In the last five years, she has managed to overcome the pain and scribble her thoughts here and there.
But she was not confident to make it a collection. Creating an account on Facebook and meeting people online changed her thoughts and with the support of her friends and family, she published her first book with the collection of her poems titled as Thudikott. As she started to get a good reception from the readers, she decided she is not going back down and started working on her second book. In one year’s time, she published her next book Nishkasitharude Aroodam.
Before she started writing, Maya says the only thing she could imagine was the hospital rooms and darkness. But looking back to her bedridden days, from somewhere she got the inspiration to write. Now, she has written 73 poems over the last six years. “There is a misconception that people like me are not capable of anything and sometimes we are cornered. But I want all the differently-abled people to follow my path and come forward. Some people have a strange tendency to equate any kind of disability with less intellectual capability. Prove others wrong,” she adds.
