The day itself is vague. What Asna now knows are the accounts of what happened from those around her. It was one of those days in Kannur, when men chased men, bombs were thrown, and a little girl’s leg was lost. Asna K., then six, has little memory of that day but she knows it had something to do with her finishing the final year of MBBS now. There is still the house surgency left, and then hopefully a PG, but she doesn’t want to dwell too much on what is to come, but do what she could at the moment. What makes her most happy about the degree is it’s what her dad had always hoped for her.
Nanu, her dad, was that day — an election day in year 2000 — at his shop. Santha, her mom, was taking the little kids — Asna and her younger brother Anand — next door at their uncle’s to be safe. “My brother was on her shoulders, I was holding her hand. We were just outside the house and men of rival parties were running by. The attack was aimed by one party at the other, but they missed and hit us. My mother and brother were also injured,” Asna says on a phone interview from Kozhikode. That’s where she went for her medicine course: the Kozhikode Government Medical College, where Asna received quite a lot of support from doctors, teachers, nurses, attendants and PG students.
“Walking long is difficult for me as I’d get ulcers. Mohandas sir, superintendent, allowed special parking that will take me to the front so I won’t need to walk. Vice-principal Dr Prathap has been a huge help too.” It was watching the doctors and staff at a hospital as a little child that perhaps made Asna want to be one. After her accident she was moved to a hospital in Kochi. The staff would tell the little girl stories, a woman she knows as Manju chechi would tie up her hair, sister (nurse) Baby would bring her food. “Rajettan the PRO used to help a lot. So did Dr Rajappan, Dr Cherian and Dr Sebin. Even now, when I pass through that way I visit them. They are all happy I chose this path.”
Asna was sure even back then that she didn’t want to use a wheelchair or crutches. She chose the artificial limb, a prosthetic leg. Her dad would take her to school till class V. When she joined high school, the family shifted to a house nearby so it’d be easier for her. She finished her tenth with A+ for all subjects. There was a time after that in Thrissur for entrance coaching. In Kozhikode, Asna had spent the first three years in a different hostel from her batch mates. “I didn’t want to be a burden for my classmates; they’d always have to help me walk or climb.” For this reason she rarely went out, too. But for the last year she moved in her with her batch mates. “I rarely go home for the weekends. But I never had to miss ‘home food’ because someone would bring food made from home. There are really a lot of people to thank, I wish I could name them all here.”
Dr Sujith of the forensic medicine department had guided her through the four years, Swapna chechi helped her avoid a lot of walking about, Dr Soman and PG students have taken care of her a lot. Asna hasn’t really benefited from the court case that has been going on since that tragic day in 2000. The Thalassery court had sentenced 13 Sangh Parivar workers to rigorous imprisonment but then it has been taken for appeal at High Court. “The other political parties – the Congress and the CPM have helped us,” she says. But she has no complaints, she is moving on with her life with many big aims, a dear girl to those around her, a dear doctor-to-be in the days to come.
