Jai Bala!

Jaybala still believes her refusal to give a precious Rs 80 to a derelict drug addict on a local train was right. That she lost her legs when he threw her out of the running train was a price she8217;s not sorry to pay. The future is bright, she laughs.

At home, after the media-frenzied stay in Nair Hospital,Jaybala is picking up her life from where she left off. Day begins with a visit to the hospital for practising with her Otto foot and then back home for cutting vegetables, cleaning and studying.

Excerpts from an interview with Aruna Chakravorty.

Actually, yesterday I had to attend a programme organised by a Marathi writer. She had sought an appointment months in advance. Then we went to meet my relatives at Andheri. The day earlier, too, I had to go out. Then every morning, I have to practise walking with the artificial foot the Otto Bock company gave me.

It is a little hard, also because it is new. But with practice it should ease out. But then, it is also soft. Let me show you shows the artificial limbs. It is soft from inside. It is also light.

Around ten days.

Yes, I have started at home. But I don8217;t think I will be able to give the exams this year. Let8217;s see. I have lost around four months of my studies. It is not easy, considering that it is the TYBCom exams.

My friends who come to meet me give them to me.

It is thanks to the support of my parents and brothers who helped me come over it. Even the doctors treated me very well. In fact, when I was discharged, the doctors asked me if I was still getting nightmares. But I don8217;t think of the incident anymore. I only think of the future now. There is no point in dwelling on the past. 8230;I suppose God helped me. Even the doctors said it would have been difficult to recover so soon as I did. In the hospital, doctors and nurses spent a lot of time with me. And there were people who came to meet me, I don8217;t even know how I spent the month.

silence Yes, when I8217;m at home all alone, I don8217;t try to get down the bed. Even the doctors said I should not try to do so when all alone in the room. When I wake up in the mornings, my mother reminds me not to get down. Just sit up, she says. Then mentally I tell myself, well I don8217;t have legs, so I will just have to keep sitting.

I don8217;t know. Kuch na kuch to karna hain.

That time I wanted to become a professor after completing my M.Com, but I don8217;t think that will be possible now. Let8217;s see.

Yes, just a few days ago I went to my aunt8217;s place in a taxi when all herneighbours surrounded the cab and talked to me. Asked me if I was well.

No, I feel they are concerned about me. Even today, nobody has forgotten me.

Well, that8217;s what I8217;ve read in the newspapers. To be frank, police did not say anything to us directly.

Police come to meet me. They are in touch.

The matter came in the papers so often. I don8217;t know where he8217;s gone. He must be hiding somewhere.

pause, giggles I don8217;t know.

thinks for a while I want my legs back.

They say I am like Rani of Jhansi. That my decision not to part with my purse was brave. Ladies come up to meand say if they were in the compartment with me, they would have helped me.

I am not the Rani of Jhansi. I8217;m an ordinary girl8230; Yes, I guess what I did was not ordinary. But I still have a long way to go.

Better than it would have been earlier. All accident victims who met me at the hospital said when God makes us undergo such incidents, it makes us better8230;I can sit back and be sorry for myself. But it will serve no purpose. The world has moved ahead. I feel I should do something so that people who know me today will always remember me.

Yes.

I don8217;t think like this. But a woman who met me once said God makes only the strong suffer. She said how she had seen a man dying of heart failure when he was lying on the tracks and saw his own legs cut by the train. I didn8217;t faint. I just lay there and screamed. Butnobody heard.

Yes, once I get used to this foot laughs. My problem is, I love travelling. I can8217;t stay at home. I won8217;t be able to go by taxi forever.

Yes, I still think I shouldn8217;t have given him any money.

They say I should have given the money.

Yes, it is a bit tiring. But then they come from so far I can8217;t refuse.

laughs Well, actually, I don8217;t read them. I don8217;t like to. They keep repeating the same things. I get confused.