Bring It On: The Incredible Story of My Life
By Deepa Malik
HarperCollins, 312 pages, Rs 499

Deepa Malik embodies resilience, determination, and the indomitable power of the human spirit. Prime minister Narendra Modi says he hasn’t seen a better motivator than her.

When recurring spinal tumours paralysed her body chest down in the middle age, she turned the frustration of an unresponsive body caging a free spirit and turned to athletics. She became India's foremost para-athlete with 23 international medals-including a silver at the 2016 Rio Paralympics, and several national awards, a recipient of the Padma Shri, the Khel Ratna and the Arjuna Award, or the first Indian female paraplegic swimmer, biker and car rallyist. Deepa Malik is a powerhouse of possibilities.

Now she has written her incredible and motivating story. In ‘Bring It On’, she gives readers a no-holds-barred look at her incredible life as she takes on one challenge after another, fights patriarchy and politics, and faces down the pettiness that society often reserves for the differently abled.

Readers will witness first-hand what goes on in the mind of a para athlete who has survived spinal tumours thrice, chooses not to be a victim but a victor, and identifies as 'wheelchair-liberated' rather than 'wheelchair-bound'. On every page, Deepa demonstrates the power of her indomitable spirit and proves that 'impossible' is just an opinion. Here is a memoir that will ignite and inspire people from all walks of life, no matter the challenges confronting them.

Here is an excerpt from the memoir:

While participating in the 2010 Desert Storm car rally, I got the news that based on my shot put bronze at the IWAS Games, I had been selected for the Commonwealth Games to be held in Delhi in October.

The Commonwealth Games are among the first international sporting events to be inclusive. Earlier, para games were held alongside able-bodied games, but in 2002 in Manchester, the Commonwealth Games became fully inclusive. Para athletes competed with able-bodied athletes in the same arena and at the same time, and their medals were added to the total tally of each participating contingent.

Only seven para athletes had made the cut from India for 2010, and I was one of them.

I was also authorized a competition partner. Devika, who was hemiplegic, was in her final year of college and became the natural choice to be mine.

Immediately after Desert Storm, which ended in Gujarat, I headed to the practice camp in Gandhinagar.

Arriving a few days late because of the rally, I was already in the headlines, thanks to a press conference Hardy had organized for me in Ahmedabad. When I arrived at the camp, I was preceded by newspaper and television coverage of my Desert Storm achievement.

I was on a high from Desert Storm but quickly came back to earth when I saw the accommodation at the camp.

The camp was being held at the SAI campus. Construction work was still on at the new building, so I had been allotted a room on the ground floor in the old girls’ hostel. The good news was that the room had an attached bathroom. The bad news was that there were two steps to enter. There was no ramp. The stop-gap arrangement that had been made was a broken door, which had been placed across the steps to serve as a ramp. My room was damp and mouldy due to seepage. Despite these conditions, I focused on the convenience of having an attached bathroom.

There were only three girls in the entire camp for para sports: Manjula, also in para athletics, and Pragya, a para table tennis player. Pragya and I had first met at the Indian Spinal Injuries Centre, where she used to take yoga classes.

In addition to the para athletes, the camp hosted other able-bodied teams, including basketball, netball and kabaddi.

We began our training in earnest. One of the coaches, R.D. Singh, was from the area of Hanumangarh in Rajasthan, near my village. Satyapal, the other coach, was several years younger than I was.

We would train in the morning and evening while resting in the afternoon. Getting up early was second nature to me, after years of doing it to get vegetables for Dee’s Place.

The training itself, however, posed certain challenges. The coaches, being younger and less experienced with para athletes, as they were used to training able-bodied competitors, did not really know how to handle us. They were wary of pushing us too much and treated us with kid gloves. I overheard someone talking about me, saying, ‘Maum ban gayee hain haddiyan’ (Her bones have become soft like wax).

Most of the training I did was by instinct and without much scientific underpinning.

The physical activity would leave me with sore muscles. I consulted Virendra Vikram Singh, my trusted physiotherapist from the ISIC. He suggested hydrotherapy as the best way of relaxing my spine and muscles after training. The camp’s pool had staggered timings for various teams. I picked the afternoon time, when the pool was free, and requested three youngsters to help me get in and out of the pool. This irked the coach, who did not appreciate the benefits of cross training.

Despite these issues, camp life was amazing, reminiscent of being back in college. I was the oldest athlete there, and I was met with great respect. The younger athletes often sought my blessings by touching my feet and came to me for advice and even help with practical matters like checking train schedules and booking tickets.

My laptop proved invaluable, not just for these logistical tasks but also to show them their rankings on the Paralympics Committee of India website.

Mealtimes were a highlight. We had a rich diet with dry fruits and high-protein foods. We could have eggs to order, as many as we wanted. We got the freshest juice—so fresh because we had a dedicated juicewala, a young man with a manual juicer ready to press the juice of our choice right after training sessions.

I was unable to go to the TV room, which was on the first floor, so most evenings, I would attend the evening arti at the campus temple. My assistant, Maya, Draupadi’s sister, would keep me company. I found a lot of peace while attending the prayers and would use that time to introspect and plan for the next day. The nights were tough. Positioned near the kitchen, my room was adjacent to the area where the kitchen staff discarded the food waste.

This attracted a pack of stray dogs each night, whose skirmishes for the tastiest scraps provided an unwanted soundtrack right outside my window. I had ringside seats to their doggie concert. Over time, I became so accustomed to their barking, snarling and growling that I could assign each bark a character trait. One night, the absence of a familiar bark troubled me, and I discovered the next day that the dog in question had been killed in the canine war.

At practice, I needed someone to lift me and put me in the throw frame. For this, I took the help of a young athlete who was also training with us. His father was from the army and had served with Bikram. We coordinated our practice times so that he could assist me. This led to some light-hearted banter and pairing off, which no one took seriously. The camaraderie signalled their acceptance of me as one of their own.

[The excerpt reproduced with the permission of the publishers.]
Top photo via: https://www.deepamalik.in/