Dubai: Sujith Koshy Varghese cannot walk — for now. But he’s determined to get back on his feet, be fit, and beat the fastest guy he knew in athletics.
Paralysed from chest down following a motorcycle accident in March 2013, Sujith’s fate is sealed, at least according to his doctors.
He would never walk again, he would not get “normal work just a desk job”, he wouldn’t be able to climb stairs, the list went on, they said.
But the 25-year-old Indian expatriate wouldn’t take no for an answer.
“The ‘nos’ started in the hospital itself. ‘Can I get discharged early?’ ‘No.’ ‘Can I do this?’ ‘No.’ Then some relatives would subconsciously limit you because they are either concerned or they feel you’re generally limited,” Sujith told Gulf News.
“I was a guy with a lot of dreams. I wanted to do tons of things. I was 21 years old [when the accident happened]. You can’t just tell me that I’m gonna be limited to a desk job all of a sudden.”
Medically speaking, the ‘nos’ were justified. When he crashed and hit a pillar, he suffered a T6 level injury to his spine. His skull had 18 fractures, causing his right eye to dip significantly. He had three broken ribs with one puncturing his lung.
Doctors said he had 40 per cent chance of survival. And if he did survive, he would be blind in the right eye and would have poor memory. Not to mention, he wouldn’t be able to walk again.
From being an active guy who was into basketball and boxing, Sujith all of a sudden became stuck in his room 24 hours a day.
“One thing I had at that time which I never had was so much of time — so much of time to think. Sometimes I felt bad but when I consciously started thinking that if I’m gonna let people limit me or if I’m gonna get stuck in this room, doing nothing all day, I’ll get stuck in a rut.”
So he decided enough was enough. From the ground floor of his house in Kerala, he tried to climb up the stairs to his room on the first floor.
He patiently lifted his body using both arms and then literally lifted his legs up the stairs, one step at a time and pausing for breaths in between. That, Sujith said, was the first mountain he conquered.
Fast forward four years and 13 surgeries later, Sujith has beaten the first two odds. His right eye is back and his memory is normal. The third one — to walk again — is his next goal to beat.
“Right now okay, I’m not able to walk. But that’s all still temporary for me in my head,” he exclaimed.
Going to the gym allowed him to beat depression months following his accident.
Although his physical movement is quite limited, Sujith never sets limits on what he wants to do. He lives an active lifestyle and goes to the gym for two hours six days a week, plus a two-hour commute from his parents’ home in Sharjah to Dubai where he is getting coaching for the chartered financial analyst exam.
He exercises his upper body muscles and does boxing as part of his cardio routine. He can bench press a 100 kilogram and can do up to 30 push-ups, modifying some moves but doing them with such intensity just the same.
Sujith’s tenacity and story earned him the spot to be an official fitness influencer for the 30-day Dubai Fitness Challenge.
“The Dubai Fitness Challenge (DFC) is the best thing that I can relate myself with. I like DFC because it’s a platform that’s providing so many different kinds of activities for everyone.
“This [DFC] is the best time you can have to transform yourself. It’s not too late. I believe that whatever stage you are in your life, whatever position you may be, however fat or thin you may be, you can always transform.”
Sujith said he now actively looks for challenges and whenever people tell him he can’t do it, he would “definitely prove them wrong”. He said the accident revealed the better version of himself when he realised he could do so much more.
He hopes others would see fitness the same way he does.
“There’s nothing special about me but I am able to do a lot of things because I know in my mind I can do it. So I tell people that the one thing that they have today that they’re not gonna have tomorrow is time. So, today, start reaching the best version of yourself. Why wouldn’t you want to be the best version of yourself? Would you want to just live a mediocre life or would you want to achieve greatness?
“Be thankful for what you have. I had it, at one point in my life. I was in basketball, I was a sports captain, but did I utilise it to my maximum potential? I didn’t. But today, I know I can.”
