Once again we are here with another inspiring story in the 8th episode of the show Umeed 3.0, an event organised by Lovely Professional University’s student organisation, Tachyons. Out of all the stories, this story is particularly an inspiring tale of a hero who was able to defy all odds in order to achieve the impossible. His story turns out to be a perfect example of the proverb “Persistent Efforts overcome any difficulty”.
We are talking about none other than Mohammad Shams Aalam Shaikh, who is an Indian Paraplegic Swimmer and has gained considerable prestige for all his accolades. He hails from Bihar and has outfaced all the stiff setbacks to reach where he is today.
Talking about his achievements, he has won the title of the 300 Most Influential People in Asia along with that he has made to the Limca Book of Records plus the Indian Book of Records for his extraordinary skills in swimming. His latest record Is for the Fastest Ganga river swimming by a paraplegic person for straight 2 Km in 2:23:04 minutes. Today we know him as an international level Para Swimmer.
While conversing he told us that he found his passion in the midst of his ongoing MBA, when a thought struck his mind, about how people are trying to understand the management of different departments so keenly while he had not understood the management of his mind itself. And in that brink, he decided to make a career in Sports, in particular, Karate. But unfortunately, he had a spinal cord injury because of which he was out of pace with his lower body. Nevertheless, he persisted, and he realized that now as he had spent most of his time engaging in sports and that was something he really enjoyed and therefore he will make a living out of that. Also, the doctors had advised him to practice swimming to regenerate his neural connections with the lower body and on connecting the dots he decided to swim for the nation! And that was it! He made his decision of enrolling himself in just Sports! and the rest is history.
Talking about his strengths, he said that being calm and composed is recently adding up to his strength. Today we see him as one of the most successful Para athletes. But behind those lay days of tremendously hard work. While signing off, he said that everyone should try to be as much as calm and composed as possible, as staying calm can help us in taking the control of the situation.
