One-legged soldier named India's blade jumper in para Asian Games

The Army's Paralympics Node (APN) was set up in 2017 and in the upcoming Guangzhou event, eight athletes from APN will be part of the Indian team.

Someswara Rao, India's blade jumper in the upcoming Asian Games, recalled how a phone call in 2013, turned his life around.

In an interview with The Indian Express, Rao recalls how as a young soldier undergoing treatment, the thought of ending his life loomed over him. Ultimately with only one thought in mind, with a blade in hand, he limped to the bathroom, when a phone call from his mother changed his life.

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“It’s because my mom called me that day that I am sitting here and talking to you today. When I heard my mom’s voice, I started weeping and then just fell unconscious. For the next 10 days, I was in and out of the ICU,” Rao told the publication.

Rao, now 33, was trying to cope with the trauma of losing his left leg from below the knee in a landmine explosion in the Uri sector of Jammu and Kashmir.

Rao joined the 11 Madras Regiment of the Indian Army in 2011, and was eagerly waiting for his posting in the Uri sector. He got drafted into the Ghatak Platoon, consisting of the country's finest soldiers.

Two years later, a tragedy struck him that changed his life forever.

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Recalling this incident, he said, “A landmine had gone off in a trench in Uri the previous night. We went there to inspect and since it was pitch dark we had light flare. That night nothing happened. But the next morning, while we were going back to the trench, I stepped on a landmine. That’s a path we had taken so many times but that day it wasn’t the same."

Struggling to come to terms with his new life, it was the chance to meet Lt Colonel Gaurav Dutta, an Army para triathlete, that gave him a sense of purpose in life.

Inspired by the Armyman, whom he met at the Artificial Limb Centre in Pune, he took to track and field, starting out as a blade-runner and later switching to long jump, for which he will represent the country in the upcoming Para Asian Games at Hangzhou, scheduled later this year.

The Army's Paralympics Node (APN) was set up in 2017, and Dutta had played a prime role in it; and in the upcoming Guangzhou event, eight athletes from APN will be part of the Indian team.

Of the eight, Rao, along with Solai Raj and Unni Renu will be part of the jumpers, while Jasbir Singh and Ajay Kumar will take part in the 400-metre running event. Three shot-putters - Hokata Sema, Soman Rana and Virendar - are included as well.