The story of resilience : SHA NAVAS
“Money cannot help me get up and walk but it may make a difference to others,” he says.
(SHA NAVAS was my neighbour when I was residing in Kamballoor.Make sure you read this article till the last line.-BLOGGER)
Kerala man paralysed from neck down has set up a multi crore timber business
Express News Service
KASARAGOD: “Mashe (sir), are you in the car that just stopped in front of my shop?”
“Yes… you cannot see me but I can see you. Take the road adjacent to the house and
you will reach my workshop. Speak to Suresh there.”
“No, you cannot see me. I’m down.” The name ends.
Inside the home, Shanavas T A (46) lies on a semi-automatic hydraulic hospital mattress in the midst of an 18 by 15 ft room. A 3-seater couch is the one different piece of furnishings within the room. A 32-inch monitor held on the dealing with wall brings to him CCTV footage from his two timber shops, depot, and round his home. An Apple AirPod affixed to his left ear retains him related to his clients.
“This is my office,” says Shanavas. “Nothing happens in my business without it first going through my ears.”
Shanavas has been paralysed neck down for the previous 11 years but that has not stopped him from organising and operating a multi-crore timber enterprise. He is just not solely profitable but can be a trusted timber dealer, supplying beams and planks in all sizes and for all wants. He is on another call. “Gopi Mashe? Okay. I will check and call back.”
He then tells his daughter, “Molé Nida, check if the money has been credited.”
After a number of punches on the cell phone, she replies within the affirmative and calls Gopi for her father. “Yes, got it. You can call me anytime for anything” Shanavas says, and in the identical breath provides: “Nida is my assistant.”
It took a number of moments to understand he ended the decision and rejoined the interview.
Life-altering accident
Nida Fathimath was 40 days previous and his elder daughter Fida Fathimath was six years previous, and in LKG, when Shanavas met with the street accident that paralysed him. He was 35 then. At 4am on May 6, 2010, when he was on the point of depart for Karkala in Udupi district to purchase timber, his spouse Rahmath gave the toddler Nida to him. “You haven’t taken her in your arms yet. Hold her once before leaving,” his spouse had stated.That was the one time he held Nida in his arms.
While returning in his automotive, with two vans loaded with timber trailing him, he dozed off at Kuniya close to Periya. The automotive turned over a number of instances. Shanavas, who was not sporting the seat belt, was flung out of the automotive. No automobile stopped to assist him. The two truck drivers loaded him onto one of many vans and drove to a hospital in Kanhangad. “The travel in the truck might have aggravated my injury,” he says.
The medical doctors in Kanhangad referred him to a tertiary care hospital in Mangaluru. The medical doctors there confirmed the spinal twine damage but dominated out surgical procedure as a result of it was dangerous. Hoping in opposition to hope, his household saved him within the ICU for 4 months and a half. Rahmath, with Nida in her arms, was the caregiver.
The keep within the ICU was essentially the most painful interval of his life, he says. “I don’t have brothers, nor does Rahmath. Our fathers had passed away and we were on our own.”
There was no enhancement in his situation but the younger household’s cash was depleting quick. “I could not even hold my head straight,” he says.
Hope from despair
Rahmath then shifted him to Christian Medical College, Vellore. At CMC, the medical doctors implanted a metal rod in order that he may manage his neck actions. They stayed within the hospital for 5 extra months. Shanavas says the stay was the turning point of his life. “Not because they made me walk. But because the conditions of other patients made me realise that I am 100% disabled but I was affected only 1%,” he says.
Woes of others
He says he noticed a physician who was in a coma. His mattress sores have been trying like craters. He suffered a spinal twine damage when his head hit the sting of a swimming pool. His spouse left him and his mom was taking good care of him. There was a zoology trainer from Victoria College in Palakkad. He was from Pala and used to spend so much of time within the forest documenting birds. One day, whereas strolling in his road, a motorbike rammed into him. He by no means received up. His doctor-daughter, who was caring for him, showed me his photograph. “He was tall and handsome like Suresh Gopi. But what I saw was a man barely weighing 20kg,” he stated.
Then there was Jasna, a younger newly-married girl. A throat surgical procedure went mistaken and she or he was lowered to a vegetable due to medical negligence, he says. “She always had moist eyes. Her eyes told me she would understand what we were saying. But she cannot even express if she is in pain or has an itch,” he says.
Her husband divorced her quickly after and left with their toddler baby. She is being taken care of by her mom. “I am not being judgemental but this is the reality,” he says.
Restarts enterprise from hospital
By the fifth month within the hospital, the household had exhausted their cash. “I decided I won’t depend on anyone, not for money,” he says. The couple deliberate to restart their timber enterprise from the Vellore hospital. Rahmath pledged her gold and raised round Rs 1 lakh. He used the cash to purchase timber on a small scale. By the tip of the fifth month, Shanavas, Rahmath, and Nida returned residence to Kamballoor in East Eleri panchayat. “Our business kept growing and we never looked back,” says Shanavas.
Now he sells imported timber, aside from indigenous wooden. He will get clients via phrase of mouth. “Ninety per cent of people who come to me buy from me. And they send their friends and relatives to me,” he says.
If Shanavas is the gross sales guru, Rahmath, a B.Com graduate, is the bookkeeper. On September 14, on their seventeenth wedding ceremony anniversary, the couple opened a brand new timber store at Parappa in Kinanur-Karinthalam panchayat. Parappa, a 40-minute drive from Kamballoor, is the hometown of Rahmath. They make use of 15 carpenters at their depot in Kamballoor and 5 on the workshop in Parappa.
Farmer and social activist Chandran Nair says Shanavas does quite a lot of charity work but with out fanfare. “He helps a lot of students, poor families, and kidney and cancer patients,” says Nair.
Shanavas performs it down. “Money cannot help me get up and walk but it may make a difference to others,” he says.
