The World of
Limitless Possibilities.
Read an interview with Dr. Deepa Malik. Her journey from a spinal tumour and paralysis to Paralympic success shows how courage, training, support, and purpose can transform a setback into a possibility.
What you will learn.
Understand the interview, revise its facts, and connect Dr. Malik’s sporting achievements with inclusion, accessibility, and emotional strength.
Trace Dr. Malik’s diagnosis, surgery, training, records, and awards.
Explain resilience, advocacy, support systems, and equal opportunity.
Use interview details, reported speech, modals, and formal writing.
One interview.
Many possibilities.
Attach your Chapter 5 audio files to the player below. Listen for facts, sequence, and the speaker’s attitude towards challenge.
Interview audio.
Select a language to listen to the lesson.
From diagnosis to advocacy.
The interview is not a list of medals. It is a record of decisions: accepting a changed body, choosing a demanding sport, training consistently, and using success to widen opportunity.
A new definition of ability.
The chapter opens with an invitation to think about people with disabilities as capable individuals, not as objects of pity. It prepares us to hear a first-person story of achievement.
A spinal tumour at eighteen.
Dr. Deepa Malik was diagnosed with a spinal tumour at the age of eighteen. Surgery left her paralysed from the waist down, but it did not remove her ambition or love of sport.
From swimming to para-athletics.
Already a swimmer, she switched to para-athletics. She trained through pain, made her body stronger, and turned a life-changing setback into a new sporting direction.
Firsts that changed expectations.
Dr. Malik became the first Indian woman to win a Paralympic medal, the first Indian woman to win a medal in a Paralympic Games field event, and the first Indian woman to complete a Himalayan car rally.
A silver medal and a message.
At Rio 2016 she won silver in the shot put. Her success was recognised through major honours, including the Arjuna Award, Padma Shri, and Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna.
Beyond the podium.
She advocates accessibility, emotional health, women’s empowerment, and opportunities for para-sportspersons. Her message is that disability is not a limitation but a unique strength waiting to be unleashed.
What the interview proves.
Use the speaker’s words and achievements as evidence, then explain the larger idea.
She treats the spinal tumour and paralysis as a challenge to answer through action, not as the end of her identity.
Training and sport become practical ways to rebuild strength, confidence, and independence.
Her advocacy asks society to provide accessibility, dignity, equipment, and a fair chance to succeed.
Her journey inspires young people to see setbacks as opportunities and their own abilities as valuable.
Revise the words that unlock answers.
| Word / expression | Meaning | Use in context |
|---|---|---|
| para-athlete | an athlete with a disability | Dr. Malik became a successful para-athlete. |
| advocating | supporting a cause publicly | She is advocating disability rights. |
| unleashed | released with powerful energy | A unique strength is waiting to be unleashed. |
| setback | a difficulty that delays progress | Every setback can become an opportunity. |
| counterpart | a person with a similar role | Para-athletes can equal their able-bodied counterparts. |
| inclusivity | including everyone fairly | Schools should promote inclusivity and access. |
Listen for the speaker’s voice.
An interview uses questions to organise facts and answers to reveal experience, reflection, and advice.
“I love sports and had been a swimmer too,” said Dr. Malik.
exact wordsDr. Malik said that she loved sports and had been a swimmer.
said that + tense shiftcould expresses past ability or possibility; should gives advice; would can show a past habit or request.
could · should · wouldcrawl → creep → walk → stroll → amble → jog → run → sprint.
slowest → fastestThe complete interview journey.
Dr. Deepa Malik’s interview moves from diagnosis to sporting choice, achievement, recognition, advocacy, and advice. Each stage adds evidence to the chapter’s central idea: ability must be supported, not underestimated.
A spinal tumour at eighteen.
The surgery left Dr. Malik paralysed from the waist down. The interview presents this fact honestly, but does not let the medical event become the definition of her life.
She stayed with sport.
She had been a swimmer and loved sport. She decided to switch to para-athletics, showing adaptation, courage, and the willingness to begin again.
Medals and records.
She won silver in shot put at the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games and became the first Indian woman Paralympic medallist and the first Indian woman to win a Paralympic field-event medal.
Beyond one event.
She became the first Indian woman to complete a Himalayan car rally. Her achievements challenge the assumption that adventure, endurance, or high-level sport belong only to able-bodied people.
Success becomes responsibility.
She supports emotional health, women’s empowerment through outdoor sport, people from lower socio-economic groups, and para-sportspersons who need equipment.
Let the journey inspire others.
Her advice is to treat every setback as an opportunity, build a support system, believe in yourself, and let your journey inspire others. Disability, she says, is a unique strength waiting to be unleashed.
Questions the chapter asks.
| Question | Answer direction |
|---|---|
| What happened after the surgery? | Dr. Malik became paralysed from the waist down, then adapted her sporting life rather than abandoning it. |
| Why did she switch to para-athletics? | She loved sport and had been a swimmer, so athletics gave her a new route to compete and develop her abilities. |
| What does advocacy mean in the interview? | It means actively supporting access, emotional health, women’s participation, equipment, awareness, and a fair chance. |
| Why is youth important? | Dr. Malik believes youth is the voice of tomorrow and can create awareness and change attitudes towards disability. |
| What is the central message? | Disability is not a limitation. With opportunity, training, support, and self-belief, people can achieve beyond assumed limits. |