No shortcut to success: Wheelchair-bound kid triumphs through Sports

No shortcut to success: Wheelchair-bound kid triumphs through Sports

New Delhi: Anirudh is a 9th-grade student at Kendriya Vidyalaya, NAD in Aluva, Kerala, India. He’s got cerebral palsy. He is the son of Mr Gopakumar K and Ms Dhanya K.V. (both parents had to quit their full-time jobs to care for him). He need a wheelchair to move about and full assistance to perform other daily duties.

Despite all of his physical limitations, he has never let his physical condition limit his mental strength. He has traveled throughout India (with his parents), which has boosted his confidence and mental power. This has also given him the opportunity to interact with people from other cultural backgrounds, so he enjoys travelling and meeting new people.

Areas of interest

Sports, literature, and travel are his areas of interest. He is trilingual, speaking Malayalam, Hindi, and English. When he meets someone who is interested in sports, his connection with them becomes effortless, and the conversation might last for hours. He is not only a sports fan, but he also thoroughly analyzes sporting events. For example, he never missed an Indian Premier League player auction and sought to figure out how that affected the strength of the various clubs.

He enjoys watching cricket matches and has a thorough understanding of the game. His expertise of football extends to both club football in India and foreign football levels. He attentively monitors every game and analyzes what went good and wrong for each club. He had the chance to see the football World Cup in Doha, Qatar. He also follows the Kabaddi league, volleyball leagues, hockey, and tennis. His day begins with reading two newspapers, one in Malayalam and the other in English. He never misses reading about sports events.

Life during and after Covid

The Covid-19 epidemic was both a curse and a blessing for him. He made ‘staying at home’ more joyful by instilling reading habits. He finished reading about 200 novels. Some of the book titles he read so far are as follows: Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare, Ikigai: The Japanese secret to a long and happy life, When the breath becomes air by Paul Kalanidhi, Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie, Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery, and Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi. Kafka’s Metamorphosis, Animal Farm, Luis Fischer’s The Life of Mahatma Gandhi, and the Enid Blyton series.

This list also includes sports biographies, such as Christopher Clare’s The Master: The Brilliant Career of Roger Federer. He has read previous biographies of Sachin Tendulkar. Dhoni, VVS Laxman, Saurav Ganguly, Kevin Peterson, Alex Ferguson, Messi, and Ronaldo, among others. He enjoys reading both English and Malayalam novels.

Future plans and how can you support him

He enjoys meeting new people and engaging in conversations about a variety of issues. His passion for athletics, desire to travel, and love of reading have all helped him on his path to self-improvement. Exploring new areas has substantially improved his physical and mental well-being. Furthermore, he has gained a renewed passion in writing about his experiences, with aspirations to channel his voice through platforms such as YouTube in the aim of inspiring and motivating others like himself (wheelchair confined) and others to be positive in life.

Anirudh’s bucket list is straightforward: read a lot, watch as many games as possible, travel the world, meet and engage with new people, learn about different cultures, and start a YouTube channel to share happiness. This is supported by his deep belief that ‘there is no shortcut to success’.

 Let us have a look at the inspiring story of Anirudh, a wheelchair-bound sports enthusiast, who has become an inspiring symbol of determination and resilience.  Sports Sports News: Latest Cricket News, Cricket Live Score, Sports Breaking News from Sports Today