Angad Dugal, who is a regular participant in the Mumbai Marathon in the champions with disabilities category, almost didn’t make it to the event this year. Dugal, who has been grappling with severe mobility and sensory problems after suffering a brain injury when just two months old, has not missed a single marathon since the event’s inception. However, four strokes within 20 hours on November 23 last year set the progress he had made in the past two years back by several notches. “Doctors advised that he shouldn’t participate in the marathon. But he was determined,” said Angad’s mother, Tonna Dugal. Angad first captured public imagination in 2003 when he walked in the seven-km Dream Run, with his family following him with a plastic chair. Since then, the marathon organisers formalised the Champions With Disabilities category for athletes with special needs, a four- km race that leads from CST to Flora fountain and back. On Sunday, the organisers accepted a request from the Dugals to lower the volume of music while he walked owing to his hypo-sensitivity to sound. “Loud sounds tend to disturb him,” said Tonna. “We still don’t know how the seizures first happened. It might have been something he ate. In the past eight years, we have been taking him to a centre in the US, where they treat him using natural methods. I followed the same philosophy in nursing him back to health. I used the Bowen Technique, which involves gently pressing muscles and tissues to relax them. He soon began to walk again,” she said. Angad improved on his finishing time last year. “His posture and speed have greatly improved. He really enjoyed himself this year,” she said. Garnering the loudest cheers, Angad clocked 2.30 hours, when he walked past the finish line, his best time yet. “We are now working to improve his vision and hope that he will be able to speak soon,” she said. srinath.rao@expressindia.com
