Limb lost, but not love: Couple wed in hospital

VELLORE: Love conquers all? Isn’t that’s the dog-eared cliché of improbable romantic novels? It’s also the story of a 23-year-old woman who on Saturday married the love of her life in Vaniyambadi Government Hospital, where he was recuperating after losing a leg in a fall from a moving train on January 23.
To say Shilpa — from Masinagudi in Ooty, who met Vijay in class as a BSc (computer science) student at a Coimbatore college in 2013 — and her new husband are up against the odds would be putting it mildly.

Shilpa and Vijay graduated in 2017. Shilpa is yet to find a job (though, a relative said, in feverish SMSs to Vijay as he lay in hospital, she vowed to do whatever it took to provide for their new household).

After battle to get married, couple ready to take on life

Vijay, also 23, from Govindapuram in Vaniyambadi, had a temporary job as a data entry operator in Coimbatore when a friend gave him a lead: A promising job in Bengaluru.

While returning home after attending an interview for the post, he slipped and fell from a train near Bangarapet in Kolar district of Karnataka. Doctors at a hospital in Karnataka had to amputate his leg just below the knee. Doctors at the Karnataka hospital later referred referred him to Vaniyambadi Government Hospital.

Vijay, whose parents Ram and Muthamma are daily wage workers, hopes to find work in four months or so, by which time doctors said he would have started physiotherapy and should be able to get around with a walker.

Having overcome objections from her mother — anxious that Vijay may now not be able to provide for her daughter — to get married to, however, Shilpa is far from intimidated by the future, said a relative who arrived at Vaniyambadi Government Hospital for the marriage. “Her courage has rubbed off on Vijay,” he said.

“After they completed their studies, Shilpa and Vijay decided to get married,” the relative said. “They had their families’ blessings. Then tragedy struck.” After she learned about Vijay’s condition, Shilpa tried to convince her mother, a widow, and her relatives that she intended to go with the wedding, he said. Married life would not be easy but she did not care, the relative said.

One of Vijay’s relatives accompanied Shilpa on the train from Ooty. The wedding took everyone in the hospital by surprise. Wary of any adverse reaction from either family, officials discharged Vijay from the hospital. But patients in the ward and their relatives blessed the couple by sprinkling flowers on the groom and blushing bride by way. The nuptials may have caught the doctors off guard, but most were pleasantly surprised by Shilpa’s conviction.

“We were surprised when Vijay tied the knot with the girl,” a doctor said with a good natured smile. “She was wearing a traditional sari.