The Blade Runner

How Shalini Saraswathi overcame loss of her hands and legs and became an inspiration to everyone around her.

- Mini P. Thomas

Shalini Saraswathi lost her limbs to a rare bacterial infection she contracted while on a holiday in Cambodia in February 2012. "Around a month after the holiday, I started feeling exhausted and slightly feverish,” says Shalini, 39, wiping off her tears with the stub of her arm. "Since I was pregnant at that time, my doctor attributed these symptoms to the pregnancy. My condition deteriorated rapidly, however, and on April 1, 2012, I was admitted to the ICU of Bengaluru's Manipal Hospital. I had a multi-organ failure, my heart stopped beating and my lungs were filled with water. No one thought I would make it.”

She also lost the baby. Shalini recovered from her critical condition in a few days but the doctors were baffled about what had led to it. “Initially, I was treated for both malaria and dengue, as my platelet count had dropped substantially,” says Shalini. Then, the doctors discussed her case with infectious diseases specialists in Cambodia and concluded that she had contracted Rickettsial with morts, a bacterial infection that is rare in India, but endemic to Southeast Asia.

Shalini had blood clots on her hands and legs, which obstructed the blood flow through the circulatory system. Thus, she soon developed gangrene—a condition where body tissues die because of inadequate blood supply—in her legs. The doctors told Shalini that her legs would have to be amputated, but she was determined to save them and turned to alternative medicine.

A Malayali, raised in Bengaluru, Shalini had heard many stories of healing through ayurveda. Thus, she went to Ottapalam, in Kerala, and consulted the spiritual leader and ayurvedic practitioner Swami Nirmalananda Giri Maharaj. "With ayurvedic treatment, the gangrene went away, so we thought things would get better from there,” says Shalini. (The swami died in 2017.)