When I began to live in Hampinagar, formerly RPC Layout, six years ago, I had been noticing him vending vegetable in a push cart. The fact that he had only a single arm made him the cynosure of our attention.

He has recently switched over to selling coconut, shouting aloud, “thengina kai, hathu rupayige nalku (Four coconuts for 10 rupees).” Though I don’t usually buy vegetables, the man made me curious and I started learning about him.

His name is Some Gowda, who is in the business of selling vegetables for 25 years. I couldn’t resist my curiosity and asked him how he lost his arm. He replied: “That happened in a factory accident 25 years ago, in Ramanagar, when I was working there. ” It seems the compensation he received for losing an arm was a paltry Rs 500.

“After the accident, I spent some months in my home town. Since I was married just two months before the mishap, sustenance became a very big question. It was then I moved over to Bangalore and took up vegetable vending for my livelihood,” Some Gowda recollected. Loss of an arm doesn’t seem to have shattered his confidence and appetite for life: he lives with his family in Chandra layout and has four children.

“Two daughters are married and have children, the third one in her PUC, while the last son is in his 10th STD,” he mentioned proudly. From a small jameenu (farming land) in Ramanagar he gets a little portion of his food, while vegetable vending gives him enough for sustenance.

Asked his age, he replied he is 52. I admired his courage and felt his must be surely a success story, as he seems to have lived a totally normal life, not allowing the tragedy to affect him. When I suggested this to him, he merely looked upwards and said everything is the grace of the almighty.

I remember a question our history professor in college asked while dealing with the partition of the country: which organ in the body, if lost, would create a feeling of utter hell or curse? Amidst suggestions of various organs, he said: “Imagine losing both the arms, that is the most difficult thing to happen to a human being and that is what has happened to our country.”

Some Gowda may have lost one arm, but he goes ahead in life undeterred by it.