MYSURU: “Doctors had assured that if my son takes the medicine without miss till he turns 18, he will be normal like any other person. So without any second thought, I decided to take this simple mission,” says 45-year-old Anand, who pedalled over 300 km in a cycle from his village to Bengaluru to purchase medicine for his specially challenged son amidst COVID-19 lockdown.
With no public transport from his village to Bengaluru amidst complete lockdown and no money left in hand to book a private vehicle to get medicine from the city, Anand, a daily-wage worker decided to pedal all his way from a tiny village in Mysuru to Bengaluru to get medicine for his specially challenged son.
Anand pedalled for over 130-140 km to reach Bengaluru from his village and collected the medicine from the NIMHANS in the city.
His simple mission emerges as a great testimony for straight-up grit and devotion. Anand, a native of Ganigana Koppalu village in T Narasipur taluk of Mysuru worked as a daily-wage labourer doing odd jobs from carpentry to mason to working on the farmlands.
But, the announcement of lockdown amidst the second wave of COVID-19 raging in the district not only took his job but also gripped him in fear as the medicine that his 10-year-old son Bhyresh, who is suffering from intellectual disability, was almost over.
“He was diagnosed with this problem when he was six months old and since then over the last 10 years, I have never missed getting him the required medicine. As we get this medicine only from NIMHANS in Bengaluru for free of cost, I would get them from there every two months once,” said Anand.
“The tablets would have exhausted by Wednesday, so I took my journey on Sunday, reached there by night and slept near a temple. I collected the tablet the next day from the hospital and returned back by Tuesday,” says Anand.
His journey was not easy, he not only pedalled amidst the scorching sunlight but had also got drenched completely due to heavy downpour on his way. He had to even face the police whenever he crossed the district borders and even had to starve in hunger with no money in hand to buy food for him.
Vishwa, a resident of the village, said that amid all his pain he took up this mission. “This is a tale of devotion,” he said.