Sheetal Devi: Finding a Way

If you have 2–3 minutes, do watch this animation I created using Claude Opus 5.5.

So many inspiring stories are coming out of India’s medal rush at the ongoing Asian Para Games. I hope to share a few of these, as the world deserves to know about these unsung heroes.

Sheetal Devi won two gold medals and a silver at the Asian Para Games in Aichi-Nagoya this week: gold in the compound individual, gold in the compound mixed team with Toman Kumar Taram, and silver in the women’s doubles with Payal Nag.

Sheetal was born without arms and grew up in Loidhar, a village in Kishtwar (in J&K), where she learned to write, eat and climb trees with her feet. An Army youth sports event spotted her athleticism, and her coaches in Katra, who had never trained an archer without arms, studied videos of Matt Stutzman, the American archer who shoots with his feet, and built her equipment.

She sits on a chair, holds the bow with her right foot, draws the string with a release on her shoulder strap and fires with a trigger held in her mouth, or as she puts it:

“What others did with their hands, I learned to do with my legs. It came naturally.”

The part of her story that stayed with me most is what happened after Paris, when a new rule allowed only her toes to touch the bow. Her coach said she had to start from zero again, and she said people told her that her time was over. A year later, she was world champion.

Sheetal, thank you for reminding us how small most of our complaints are, and how much is possible when you simply find a way.

Watch the animation: Sheetal Devi — Finding a Way (YouTube)