When a wheelchair-bound expat defied a rare condition to skydive

An overachiever growing up, Shobhika Kalra, who recently made news for being the first wheelchair-bound Dubai resident to go skydiving, was a star student. With her zest for life, she revelled in singing, running, jumping, and dancing, embracing every opportunity to experience the world to its fullest.

However, at the age of 13, her life took an unforeseen turn. Initially dismissed as mere clumsiness or a result of her newfound fascination with high heels, Shobhika, pictured below with a friend, began stumbling and falling with increasing frequency.

Concerned, her parents decided to seek medical advice, assuming it would be a minor issue that could be resolved with medication. Little did they know that the series of routine tests they underwent would deliver news far from what they had anticipated.

A rare genetic condition

Shobhika got diagnosed with a rare genetic disorder called Friedreich’s Ataxia, which causes progressive loss in muscle strength. The degenerative disease leads to irreversible damage to the spinal cord, peripheral nerves and the cerebellum portion of the brain. Following the diagnosis, the doctors told the family that she would not live more than 4-5 years.

“Since the heart is also a muscle, they said that it could collapse any time, causing a fatal attack,” says Dr Alka. After taking in this life-altering news, the family took a long time to come to terms with their new reality.

As one could imagine, the road to acceptance, which lasted more than a year, was anything but easy. Bit by bit, Shobhika started to lose her muscle strength as her family watched their daughter struggle, unable to offer any real solution to her pain and suffering.

But the story that followed led Shobhika to become a beacon of true grit, resilience and determination. In a recent feat, the disability campaigner, who’s now 32, went skydiving to honour her mother’s 60th birthday celebrations. And even though she suffers from a condition that’s withering away her physical strength, what remains undeterred is her will power and mental toughness, to achieve whatever it is she sets her mind to.

The skydiving adventure

Shobhika, who’s been wanting to go skydiving for a while now, mentions that this finally seemed like “the perfect time to go ahead and do it”. She continues, “I was ready at 5am sharp, eager to finally make it happen. It was an amazing experience.” For the disability advocate, who takes pride in being an adrenal junkie, this isn’t the worst time she’s tried and adventure sport as her quest for seeking adventure goes back to her first time scuba-diving.

However, more than the physical thrill of such adrenaline-infused sports, what resonates with her is the ability to break free from mental boundaries. “I don’t want people to dictate what I can or cannot do,” says Shobhika. “Ever since I got diagnosed with the disorder, all people said to me was what I could or could not do, as a result of the condition. Whether it’s the doctors or people around you, nobody has the right to set boundaries on your life. But more than them, I wanted to do this for myself, to prove it to myself that all those people who tried to set boundaries for me were wrong.”

The warrior mindset

When it came to jumping off the aircraft, Shobhika says she had no qualms about it. “Compared to what you deal with every day as a person of determination, this is actually nothing. The challenges I face on a daily basis are far greater,” says Shobhika.

The landing post-skydiving, tandem or otherwise, often requires you to run on your feet as you touch the ground. When asked how Shobhika overcame this challenge, she responds, “The instructors at Skydive Dubai are very well-trained. My skydiving instructor put his legs below mine and raised my legs, so we could land on our hip. It didn’t cause any jerk or discomfort. It was very smooth.”

“It was a beautiful sight to see. Everyone who was present at the venue gave them a standing ovation,” her mother adds. “These are not just adventure sports, it’s a way of life. The kind of momentum achieving something like this gives you is unparalleled,” says Dr Alka, co-founder of Eduscan, an organisation that works extensively with young kids in summer camps all across the UAE to foster a mindset of leadership from an early age. “I strongly believe that leaders are not born but made,” adds Dr Alka.

Shobhika, who’s a psychologist by profession, has blossomed into the person she always aspired to be. With over 100,000 followers on her TikTok account, she’s an active disability campaigner and model in the UAE, who has single-handedly redefined what being a ‘Person of Determination’ truly entails.

Rising above adversity

Looking back at the trials the family faced initially after Shobhika’s diagnosis, her mother admits that things weren’t always as positive as they seem now.

“One fine day, Shobhika called us and started crying. She felt homesick and wanted to come back home, so we brought her back. But the treatment didn’t stop there. They sent a big box of medication that she didn’t want to take. From morning till night, she would need to have these bitter-tasting medication every 30 minutes. We were juggling the bottles, trying to make it work, until she turned around and said, ‘I don’t want to live like this.’”

Moved to tears, Dr Alka recounts that “all these different ways to find a cure for her situation had a very detrimental impact on Shobhika’s mental health”. “Despite being educated, you become such a fool when a situation like this arises. We were so desperate to just find a cure,” she adds.

From suffering to thriving

What really caused the situation to turn around was the resilience that Shobhika eventually discovered within herself. Rather than depending on external faculties to give her false hopes, she decided to turn inwards. “We saw a shift in her after this incident. She decided to accept the wheelchair and became determined that she will not let anyone define what she can or cannot do,” says her mother (pictured below with Shobhika).

Embarking on a journey of self-healing, Shobhika immersed herself in the concepts of positive psychology and manifestation, turning to meditation for obtaining answers doctors were unable to give her. Creating life-size vision boards, plastering positive affirmations in her bedroom and listening to motivating audio books, Shobhika built an unwavering mindset that ignited hope within her at a time when there was none.

“She was determined that she wanted to live life as normally as she possibly can. She even went on to complete her higher education.” What followed later took the family by surprise. After a few years of Shobhika’s self-affirming journey, her mother and father, Mr Navin Kalra took her to a cardiologist, to check the condition of her heart. “The cardiologist said that her heart muscles were still strong,” says her mother. “It was a very strange case because all her muscles were getting weaker but the heart muscles were not impacted. They couldn’t identify the cause for this,” recalls Dr Alka, attributing the reason to her daughter’s undeterred mindset.

“She believes in the power of thought and uses her own strategies to deal with life. Whenever she sets her mind to something, she will achieve it,” she adds.

All about perspective

Everything in your life depends on your perspective, believes Shobhika. “First, I used to look at things based on how other people viewed things. Then, I started to develop my own perspective and that’s when I truly started living my life,” says the TikToker. And while the skydiving experience has been yet another feather in Shobhika’s illustrious hat, overcoming these barriers stems from her desire to spread awareness around the challenges people of determination face in their everyday life.

“Usually, when someone doesn’t have a person of determination in their family, it gets very hard for them to understand the challenges we face on a daily basis. That is why I have made it my life’s mission to go around speaking to as many schools, organisations and people, to spread awareness about the needs of differently-abled people,” says Shobhika. “I got blessed with a very loving and supportive family but not everyone has the same experience.”

Having won several accolades for her contribution to the landscape of people of determination in the UAE, Shobhika adds, “We need better accessibility in the architectural structures, better support from the faculties. From inception, if there are wheelchair-friendly ramps designed into the blueprint of a building, it will make a lot of impact on the quality of life for people like me, who otherwise have to depend a lot on other people for our daily tasks.”

“Through my hardships, I have found meaning and purpose in life. I am able to stand up for people’s well-being and their rights, and bring change in society. There’s nothing more fulfilling than that,” says Shobhika, who believes that there’s no purpose to life if you’re not able to inspire others. “Just focus on yourself, believe in yourself. Strive to make yourself the best version of you; once you do that, everything else will fall in place.”

somya@khaleejtimes.com