6. Sudha Chandran - Dancer

 - Sudha chandran was born in mumbai in a tamil family.

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Seeing her enthusiasm for dancing, her father chose to enroll her for a dancing institut  at an early age. She began dancing at the age of 3 and gave her first stage performance
 at the age of 8!

 Also, she learned dancing alongside her studies, and when she turned 16, she was already a rising star of the dancing world with 75 stage performances under her belt! 

Sudha was a splendid student in academics as well. Yet, dancing has always been her first love.

A Tragedy Disguised in Blessing

 

Sudha Chandran performing with her Jaipur foot

Only four months before her 16th birthday celebration, she met with an accident while traveling in a bus in Tamil Nadu. 

The accident fractured her right leg along with a few cuts.
 Because of the sudden rush of critical patients at that time,
a team of medical interns attended to her.
They failed to see the cuts on her right lower leg.
 They simply wrapped her leg with POP plaster. It led to a rise of infection in her right leg because of which it had to be amputated  

Sudha was devastated. all her dreams of becoming a big dancer were shattered 

Negative thoughts - depression, anger, frustration - enveloped her.

 

But she did not quit.

2 years later because of someone she came to know about artificial leg in Jaipur . 
 Jaipur Foot or Jaipur Leg. It took her four months to walk straight with them.

 

After learning to walk well with the artificial limb, she began practicing dance.

It was difficult. She had to learn every step again. 

There were times when her leg would bleed. Yet, she continued.

A True Test of Courage

This is the actual beginning of the inspirational story of Sudha Chandran. 

  She was scheduled to give a live stage performance in St. Xavier's School, Mumbai, on January 28, 1984. All the main daily papers applauded her stage performance.

Prior to the performance, she was a little nervous due to the large crowd awaiting her. A couple of big media and film dignitaries were among the group, including Ramoji Rao,  

The minute she landed on the stage, she just overlooked her leg and gave a stellar performance to get a standing ovation 

 

When the Stars Smiled on Sudha

 That one performance changed her life.\
 She received immense appreciation from Indian and international media. She got invitations to perform in different nations over the globe.

 Ramoji Rao chose to influence a Telugu film on her life, and he offered her the lead part. This motion picture, Mayuri (1985), was a box office success and won the best feature film award from the state government. Later, it was dubbed in Malayalam and Tamil language and even remade in Hindi with the name Naache Mayuri (1986).

 Presently, Sudha is a well-established actress. She has acted in various movies of different languages like Hindi, Tamil, Malayalam, Telugu, Gujarati, and Kannada. Her rundown of TV serials is long with a modest bunch of Dancing reality shows as a judge.

 This inspirational story of Sudha Chandran is a stepping stone for those under similar circumstances. 

 . Presently, she runs dancing schools with the name, Sudha Chandran Academy of Dance. It has several branches in Mumbai and Pune. Her husband is the official director of these schools and she teaches there each Sunday.

 

A Note to the Reader:

 The inspirational story of Sudha Chandran delivers an important message: 

a physical disabilty  cannot hamper our dreams and our way to success. 

It depends on how one overcomes this difficulty mentally. Once you do that, nothing can stop you from achieving your goal. Life will throw many unfortunate events at us, but we must make sure that we don’t sink into negativity.