Logo of Everyone is good at something

anjali

anjali
sunny , kerala

A mid shot of Anjali Sunny smiling, wearing spectacles with thin black frames and a plain navy blue sleeveless tunic, sitting in her wheelchair. She is at the left edge of the frame, her body crossed by five diagonal parallel lines that are the stainless struts of banisters of a stairway. On each of the four marble steps of the stairway is placed a bottle painted with pretty designs. There is a plastic flower stuck in the mouth of each bottle; two of the flowers are red and two yellow.
Anjali sits in her motorized wheelchair in the verandah of her house, wearing a long, blue sleeveless tunic and blue churidar. She has shoulder-length wavy hair. Behind her is the half-open front door, and to the left, three brown plastic chairs in a row. Behind the chair is a tall window divided into three sections, the wooden frames painted brown.
Anjali sits in her wheelchair outside her house on a broad pathway covered with a layer of gravel made of small granite stones. She is surrounded by her three young cousins: two boys and a girl. The youngest wears pale blue shorts and dark blue shirt in a red and white check pattern, his older brother wears a maroon shirt and tight blue jeans, and their older sister wears a long, navy blue frock. They are all smiling and looking at a cream-coloured dog sitting on its haunches. The dog is looking up to the sky and through its closed mouth its tongue is curling up to touch its nose.
Anjali in a blood-red kameez with three-fourth sleeves and black churidar sits in her wheelchair in front of a window in her room, facing left. In front of her is a table covered with a blue-and-white checked cloth. On the table, an open sketchpad shows the painting of a woman’s face, and a pencil lies vertically on the page. The table also contains an iPad, two novels and stationery items including pencils in a holder.
Anjali in an orange short-sleeved kameez sits in her wheelchair in the dining area. Her father Sunny N.J. sits right next to her, wearing a black T-shirt with a grey collar and pants with small grey-and-black checks. Her brother Abil Sunny stands behind her in a navy blue T-shirt, his right hand resting on her right shoulder. Her mother Bincy Sunny stands behind her father with both hands resting on his shoulders. She wears a slate grey kameez with pink embroidery on the front. At the left edge is a glass-fronted showcase containing several specimens of bottle art in bright colours amidst glass crockery.
Icon to view photos in full screen

“I started achieving my dreams the moment I turned my disability into my strength”

When Anjali Sunny (26) of Srikandapuram, Kannur district was in kindergarten she complained of leg pain when taking part in a dance. Her teachers and parents thought she was being lazy and making excuses. It was only when she reached Class 4 that a teacher suspected there was something amiss and told her parents to get her diagnosed. It turned out she had Muscular Dystrophy which progressively weakens the muscles of the body.
 
Anjali’s mobility decreased to a level that obliged her, even as a schoolgirl, to start using a wheelchair. She faced a setback in 2009 when her father, her main motivator, had a stroke that paralysed his left side; today he is totally dependent on her mother. Her friend Lini (Linimol Anthony) has been her mainstay right from middle school through college. Forced to take a gap year after 12th standard because she was unable to commute to a college of her choice, Anjali finally chose a nearby college to do BBA and M.Com. Her teachers were very supportive. “My HOD (Head of the Department) spent his own money to buy an easy chair for me so I could sit comfortably in the classroom.”
 
In her gap year she learnt graphic designing via online tutorials and started creating birthday calendars for family members. Lini was learning fashion designing at the time and her acrylic paints were lying around. Anjali picked them up and started drawing on the backs of her old calendars. Once she gained confidence she graduated to canvas with her mother assisting her by handing over whatever material and equipment she needed in the process.
 
Anjali has learnt to not brood over her increasing debility. “I don’t think of the future, only of today and tomorrow,” she says. “All my goals are short-term.” As a teenager she had learnt keyboards and Carnatic music from a home tutor. She stopped playing keyboards when her muscles deteriorated but her singing goes on! When physical painting became impossible, she switched to digital painting, first on mobile and later on iPad. In 2018 she got a heartening response when she started putting up her digital art on Instagram, and now she has over 300 paintings and her own YouTube channel.
 
“Whenever I face a problem I remind myself of even bigger problems I have faced before,” she says. “One is never disabled unless one decides to be.”
 

Photos:

Vicky Roy

©Copyrights - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/