From being a polio victim to dedicating his whole life to the cause of eradicating the crippling disease from India and organizing several initiatives for it, Ramesh Ferris has indeed come a long way.
Ferris, who had contracted the disease while he was just a six-month-old baby, says he looks forward to the day when the country will be declared free of polio.
"It will be one of the greatest feats in the world history," says Ferris who was born in Coimbatore to a poor family and handed over to an orphanage when he turned one and a half years old.
Ramesh's journey was never easy from the time he was afflicted with the ailment which was supposed to leave his legs paralyzed for whole life.
"My birth mother tried her best to take care of me for a year but she soon realised she didn't have the means to raise him and turned him over to the orphanage," said the 34-year-old who was here recently.
The Canadian-founded orphanage was nothing less than a boon for Ferris as within a year, he was adopted by a family based in Yukon, Canada.
"Soon after my adoption, I could get access to corrective surgery and intensive rehabilitation and it only got better from there," recalls the 34-year-old.
Ferris says he never gave up attempting to sensitise on the issue despite being "mocked and taunted by people around him."
"I never gave up despite being made fun of for being different. I stayed focused," he said.
After his graduation, Ferris returned to India, this time fitted with braces and clutches. "The meeting with my mother was emotional and I was very happy. But what changed my life forever was the moment I saw a polio survivor crawling on the road with the help of tyres. I was shocked and just thought to myself if I hadn't got any treatment, I would have been crawling to survive too," he said.
