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Ishrat Akhtar is making headlines for becoming the first woman to represent India at international level in a wheelchair basketball tournament. Her latest participation in an international tournament was in Thailand where she stole the limelight with her performance amid scores of players and game lovers.
Ishrat recounted her story of the situation that put her in a wheelchair. By dint of her sheer courage, she jumped to the world of games and finally became a star player of wheelchair basketball.
In the course of her treatment and finally introduced to wheelchair, Ishrat spotted some boys playing wheelchair basketball. She approached them and asked if she could also play. They agreed. From here, her life took a new turn, according to the Research Centre Global Order report.
She heard about some tournament in Srinagar under the auspices of the Wheelchair Basketball Federation of India. She went there, and got selected for the National level.
Basketball turned into a therapy for Ishrat. She started taking keen interest and her family extended maximum support to pursue the game, which was entirely a new thing for her.
The ‘horrific incident’ that led her to the wheelchair is still alive in her mind. In 2016, she fell from the second floor of a building after which she was taken to a hospital immediately in Baramullah.
Since her spinal cord was completely damaged, she was referred to Srinagar where she underwent surgery. She stayed in the hospital for a month after the surgery. “When I got discharged and came home, I did not really understand what had happened. After almost six months, there was no improvement in my condition,” news agency ANI quoted Ishrat as saying.
Ishrat became dependent on her family for everything. She was in bed all the time and her family members were giving her food.
One year passed like this when she got a call from someone telling about some camp that was giving wheelchairs to people like me. Her sister persuaded to go to the camp.
At the camp doctors persuaded Ishrat to come to hospital to get knowhow about using the wheelchair.
It was good training for Ishrat. She became confident in managing her daily chorus, as it took almost a year for her to be used to the new equipment, the wheelchair, which emerged as her lifeline.
Today Ishrat is busy with her regular practice, fitness and happy that she manages her daily task on her own. Wheelchair basketball brought a sea change in her life.
(Photo/ Research Centre Global Order)
