Breaking Barriers

He was born without a right hand, but Adrian Anantawan doesn’t want your pity.

- Juliana Chan

Watching Adrian Anantawan perform the theme from Spielberg’s Schindler’s List blew me away. I was in tears, not because here was someone playing the violin with just one hand, but because he played the instrument so beautifully and passionately that I began to think about what it means to be enabled, not disabled.

Born of Thai-Chinese ethnicity, Adrian’s arm had got entangled in the umbilical cord and didn’t develop normally. Nevertheless, his parents wanted him to learn to play a music instrument. With an adaptive device built by biomedical engineers, he was able to hold a bow to begin violin lessons at age nine. There were frustrating times in the first few months but he kept on trying. Over time, he made the transition from making sounds akin to the cries of a tortured animal to a voice for expression. Now 34, the Canadian violinist has established himself in the arena on pure merit.