Kajal Dey is a 49-year-old table tennis coach without wrists. On the evening of May 21, 1991, Dey, then 21, lost his wrists during a political violence after then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination. Now, he is an icon for thousands of young paddlers.

He hopes one day his students will fulfil his dream of bringing a gold medal to Tripura which he could not due to negligence of the administration and petty politics in the sports sector.

“I was returning home from my workplace on that evening as usual. I saw two groups indulging in violence. I was passing by the spot when I felt a stone-like object hurled at me. It exploded and I became unconscious. When I regained sense, I realised things will never be the same again. I was bleeding profusely,” Dey told this correspondent.

Dey was a driver of a nursing home then and often had to work till late at night.

He said his friends and family members rushed him to a hospital and he was kept under treatment for a long time.

His wrists were amputated to save him.

One of Dey’s friends advised him to go to the Artificial Limb Centre (ALC) Pune for an operation.

“I was under treatment for nearly six months there. Nobody can imagine the kind of discipline they maintain. I was made to work out things for myself,” he said.

“An expert from the ALC suggested that I undergo a special operation by separating radius and ulna — the two arm bones — sans the wrists. I underwent the operation and muscle starting growing around the two bones,” Dey said.

He used to sit in Pole Star, a local club, and watch his friends play football and cricket besides indoor games in the Astabal playground (Later named Swami Vivekananda Maidan). One day, he made up his mind to play table tennis.

“I thought of playing table tennis, but did not know how. I had no idea. I consulted some orthopaedics. Following their advice, I designed a bat that can be fixed between the two bones of my right arm using rubber sheaths that can be easily attached with a table tennis bat,” Dey said. Since then, there was no looking back.

Dey offers free coaching from 6.30am to 8am and from 3pm to 5pm everyday. Dwaipayan Dutta, one of his students, was a champion in the Northeast Table Table Tournament in 2017.

He at present works in the power department in Agartala.

“The spare time I get before and after office hours, I spend in Pole Star club’s indoor training centre with my students,” he said.

Last year, he went to Madhya Pradesh to participate in the Indoor Para Table Tennis Tournament.

Dey’s daughter, Kalyani, has participated in different tournaments, winning four silver and bronze medals for the state.