This little girl was born with about the worse streak of bad luck a child can have. First, she was born in a small village in one of the most remote parts of India, where one might easily assume the people are more religiously inclined, and profoundly more superstitious, than most others. Then, she was born during a severe thunderstorm, which ceased on the day of her birth, which also happened to take place during a festival in honor of the Hindu goddess Lakshmi.
The icing on the cake? She was born with eight limbs-four arms and four legs. The goddess Lakshmi, it just so happens, is portrayed as having eight limbs.
Can you imagine what the result would have been had this little girl been born a thousand years ago? She would have been worshiped as a living goddess and honored with all manners of presents and sacrifices in her honor, and would have lived a life of plenty, though otherwise she would doubtless have been overly protected to the extent she might well have been one miserable little girl.
That might well have been her fate today. She was already declared an incarnation of Lakshmi, and the villagers were ready to honor and worship her as such by and large, although one enterprising soul, doubtless an outsider, offered to buy her for use as a circus freak performer.
Her parents, though wary, and even though they themselves believed the little girl was a goddess, decided instead to go the surprisingly sensible route of having the little girl operated on. The success of the operation will result in a normal life for her. A good thing, too. According to the doctor who performed the operation, she probably would have died in her teens from an infection.
It turns out her extra limbs were the result of a parasitic "shadow twin" that never developed to the extent it became a fellow siamese twin. The infection was the result of one of this twins limbs growing on her spine and protruding through her back.
She is now normal, and will more than likely even be able to raise a family of her own someday.
5 comments:
That was the best outcome.
It irritates me when people (media) make freak shows out of kids with problems, but at least in this case, it was kind of like a "positive" freak show. Better to be regarded as a goddess than a freak.
I don't think that was their intention, it was more a human interest story. Also, it shows how times have changed in India and the advances they've made in so many areas, most specifically in the medical field, in this case.
Plus, the little girl will probably still be regarded as a goddess by many in her village. After all, Krishna had a two-armed form. In fact, acording to the Bhagavad-Gita, Arjuna begged him to manifest in his two-armed form, if I remember correctly. Who knows, maybe they will see her now as even more of a goddess.
That might not be a good thing though. On the one hand, she might be pampered and petted, but on the other hand, she might be so over-protected she might not have much of a life to speak of yet.
We watched some stuff about her last night. It hadn't dawned on me that she was born on the goddess Lakshmi's "holy day". I was blown away. I don't think the people are crazy for thinking she is the goddess. There are too many similarities. I happen to think that her life has to be some kind of message from above. The documentaries state that in her village, handicapped children are left to die. She was not, because of her resmblance to Lakshmi. Maybe the gods are telling them not to throw away their disabled children...??? I have no idea. I am not hindu, but I can't think that this was just a coincidence.
Yeah, it kind of looks all a little bit too coincidental, for her to be born with those features in that particular village, and especially on that particular day. I have to restrain myself from making any divine pronouncements, because there could well be some medical and/or even psychological factors at work. Fertility drugs, for example, or maybe a strong attachment by the mother to the goddess that might have had some kind of affect modern medicine isn't quite capable of understanding yet. Still, its something to think about.
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