Positive story of the day -- When courage paints itself in a woman

Over 12 fractures, 88 operations on different parts of her body, loss of a forever serving mother, bed and wheelchair as among unwanted but forever companions and pain, emotional with physical turmoil as shadows. Yet Kshama Kulshretha came out of all these with flying colours.

These colours made a magical entry into her life and spread on her canvases! Not only that, the experiences of life also got wrapped into her pen and she started writing poems of wisdom and warmth, mother and motivation and philosophy and philanthropy.

A resident of Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, Kshama Kulshretha is an epitome of audacity whose paintings have won her global adulation and no other than the President’s Award and a glorious entry into the Guinness Book of World Records and Limca Book of Records, apart from innumerable awards and appreciations from almost all across the country are her claim to fame.

Kshama’s life story is worth a book, or a film. She was among five of her siblings and interested in painting. But an accident almost paralysed her and restricted her to the bed, and with 12 fractures on her body she had to undergo nearly 88 operations in several years to survive.

She had lost sensation in her lower body but her heroine, her mother, an interior designer by profession left her job and every other work to take care of her, by fighting with the world, people she called her own, doctors and those who had believed that she would never be able sit and be in vegetated state forever.

A charismatic lady, her mother gave her 25 years of her life to serve her daughter relentlessly and finally won, when Kshama was able to sit with all cracked bones with the help of her doctor who “took risk” to witness the courage the duo showed.

Kshama with her inspiring mother Urmila Kulshretha. Now she calls herself Kshama Urmila

Soon, with countless medication and unyielding efforts and a companion in her mother, a sister and her brother-in-law Kshama was finally able to walk a bit too. It was a divine calling that at that time her mother fell severely ill, developing tuberculosis in her spine and needed help. It was Kshama’s time to return love. “She became my child and I became her mother,” says Kshama.

Destiny took away her mother after a year of illness and the world came crumbling down on her daughter. With the help of her sister and brother-in law, she again gathered courage. She learnt animation online and with the help of few people in her life and now she has made a small seven-minute on her called Pupa and Angelina under her production house called The Pink Flower. Pink Flower is the name she has given to her mother.

“I used to call my mother the pink flower”, she says loosely referring to the Pink Orchid that grows once in 16 years in the mountains. The film would be released on you tube tomorrow May 22, at 11 a.m.

Here is the link to the film

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6rw_M0voxWE8vRADnNNoMA/about?app=desktop

Kshama wants to keep the story of the film. “It is dedicated to my mother and all my life all my work would be dedicated to her” she says over a telephonic interview with me.

Kshama is now 42 but neither she looks that age, nor sounds one. She imbibes a child-like innocence and purity, her immensely sweet and polite voice jingles like a La Kamini Kaushal in that famous radio programme on children’s stories called Chun Mun in the early 1970s, and her manner of conversation is full of humility, warmth and worldly wisdom.

In fact, she appears quite much of a contrast as she reads anyone out of 2,500 she has penned on her mother – as deep as ocean, recited like a chuckling student of a school. So if you listen to her without seeing her, you will bet on her not being more than 16, especially if you listen to that innocent giggle in her honeyed voice.

Here are few lines of her poem she wrote on her mother

Maa nahi marti.

Voh to Akaash ho jati hai

Apni parwarsih ki udaan dekhne ke liye

(Mothers don’t die

They become skies,

to see the flight of her reared ones)

Kshama also has a real life hero in her life. Famous Bollywood actor Yashpal Sharma who when read about her, not only met her but also helped her set up a production house through which now makes short films with his creative and technical help apart from emotional support like an elder brother.

Kshama with her "Hero Bhaiyya" Bollywood actor and philanthropist Yashpal Sharma, who helped her set up her production House The Pink Flower, under which her first animation film Pupa and Angelina will release on may 22 at 11 a.m on you tube

"For me he is my hero. So I call him “Hero Bhaiyya”, chuckles the child-like Kshama.