SHALINI SARASWATHI cherishes hugs with all her heart. Nothing touches her more than when, after hearing her share her journey, someone from the audience steps forward, wraps her in a warm embrace, and with a teary smile, says they can now “go back and deal with their life”.
Today, Shalini holds the Asian record of being the fastest woman on blades (T62 category). She is also a motivation speaker and the chief of strategy and implementation at Rise Bionics, a company that creates a range of assistive devices. Shalini lived her first three decades as an able-bodied person. But in 2012, when she was pregnant, life took a dramatic turn. Shalini was hit by a rare bacterial infection while vacationing in Cambodia, and that brought her dangerously close to death. “I was in coma and given a 3 per cent chance of survival. I vividly remember the doctors warning me that I might lose all my limbs, but at the time, it felt like an impossibility. You hold on to hope, thinking that something, some miracle, will intervene,” she recalled at THE WEEK’s Best Hospitals awards event.
The bladerunner reflects on the immense challenges of transitioning from that pivotal moment in life. “There is a sense of complete uncertainty―you don’t know what your future will look like, whether things will ever be okay, whether you will work again, go out for a movie, or even maintain your friendships,” she said. “You lose your sense of identity and who you are as a person. Navigating through that transition is undeniably difficult. But I believe we all have inherent strengths. Some of us choose to tap into them, while others may not. I was fortunate to find that strength within me to face the challenges, and I had an incredible support system―a loving network of friends and family―that made the transition a little easier.”
Shalini credits her inherently happy-go-lucky nature in helping her navigate this journey. Humour has also been her way of addressing even the most pressing issues. She used humour to recount the story of one of the most significant decisions she made after losing her limbs: taking up sports.
“I didn’t wake up one morning and decide, ‘I am going to be an athlete.’ I was never into sports growing up,” said Shalini. “The only reason I joined the volleyball team in school was because I went to an all-girls school, and volleyball competitions were one of the few chances to see boys!”
However, it was after completing the TCS World 10K, an annual 10km road race, that running became an obsession. “A newspaper published an article titled ‘Quadruple Amputee to Run’, and that was when I began to see myself through others’ eyes,” she recalled. “Until then, for most of us, it was just Shalini running―we never associated it with my disability or factored that into the picture at all.”
Running became a way for Shalini to “reclaim power”. “Losing all your limbs takes away your agency and sense of control,” she explained. “But being able to push my body forward despite that was my way of taking back control of my life. It was like telling myself, ‘If I can do this, I can handle whatever else comes my way.’”
Shalini also uses the power she reclaimed and her “privileged position”―compared to many people with disabilities and those from marginalised communities―to speak up for those who are less fortunate. She describes Indian society as “inherently dysfunctional”.
“We struggle to treat humans well, let alone people with disabilities,” she said. “This exclusion is part of a broader spectrum that also affects individuals in the LGBTQIA+ community, neurodivergent people and others who don’t fit into societal norms. We don’t make life easier for anyone who is different.”
Shalini points out that inclusivity in India remains an elusive goal, starting with basic infrastructure and fundamental rights like education. “We don’t have enough inclusive schools,” she lamented. “Instead, we isolate children based on disabilities―schools for the blind, for example―separating them from the larger society. Unless we create spaces where everyone coexists, we will never learn to accept and embrace people who are different.”