Bengaluru: Though she is a person with disability, having suffered from polio at a tender age, 69-year-old Prema is a living testimony of a successful physically challenged tailor in Nyamati area of Karnataka’s Shivamogga district.
Her story is that of resilience and determination, after she lost her legs – what she admits has been hard to live with during her childhood. She thought this was the end of her world.
“I suffered from polio when I was twelve-years-old (in 7th class) and by the time I was old enough to understand my condition, I felt so helpless and thought nobody would ever respect or even love me. I felt God had forgotten me,” Prema narrates.
However, that didn’t stop her from being independent and example for her village. She says it reached a point her condition motivated her instead.
“When people started taunting me for sitting idle, I learnt stitching just by watching how my sisters did. And at the age of 22, I established myself as a tailor,” she said.
“God has blessed me with a beautiful family. I am eldest of my siblings. I had five sisters,(two died of cancer) and three brothers,” she says with pride while adding, “These days I am living with my younger brother Jayaram in or Nyamathi’s ancestral house. He owns a Kirana shop.”
“Jayaram too lost his wife earlier after suffering from some mysterious disease and his daughter goes to school,” she says.
For tailoring, she created a special space, by carving a portion of the foor in the house, to keep her legs while stitiching.
She not only stitches clothes but has also taught tailoring to more than 2000 women in the area.
Recently, on the marriage ceremony of her younger sister’s son Pradeep, she travelled to Bengaluru. Her sister-in-law Vani Pardeep made arrangement for her to be part of a TV reality show, Maja Talkies, which was hosted by actor Srujan Lokesh.