Lucknow: As thousands prepare to celebrate Valentine’s Day, the day of love, the one of its kind restaurant chain, Sheroes Hangout in Lucknow is gearing up to celebrate the engagement of a former employee — an acid attack survivor — at the eating joint that is famous for being run by acid attack survivors.
Pramodini and Saroj would get engaged on February 14 at Sheores and preparations are in full swing at the restaurant as her former colleagues can hardly contain their excitement.
Pramodini and Saroj’s story is nothing short of Bollywood movie plot. The couple met for the first time when Pramodini was undergoing treatment at a hospital in Cuttack after surviving the attack and Saroj was visiting the hospital as a medical representative. A nurse introduced the two and soon, Saroj decided to support Pramodini in every way he could. Even after facing stiff opposition from his friends and family, Saroj continued to see her on a regular basis.
Pramodini, who is also known as Rani, was just 16 years old when an official from an Army camp near her school started stalking her. Her family rejected his marriage proposal and one day when she was returning from school after her board exams, the accused threw acid on her. The acid burnt almost 80% of her body and blinded her.
She was in ICU for nine months and bedridden for the next five years till 2014.
“My father had passed away when I was a kid and my family was not in a condition to support me for too long. It was my mother and some friends who never gave up on me and took me to a private medical facility for further treatment. For the first time in that hospital, I met Saroj, who was a medical representative and was known to the nurses working there,” narrates an ecstatic Pramodini.
She was bedridden at that time and could hardly walk without support. Even the doctors had said that she won’t be able to walk some more years due to the neural damage the acid had done to her.
Saroj and Pramodini days before their Valentine's Day engagement. (Image: News18)
In such a situation, Saroj, who also hails from Orissa, took care of her eventually helped Pramodini in recovering in just four months.
“I decided to leave my job in order to give all the emotional and mental support that Pramodini needed. I motivated her and tried everything that I could and finally, she started walking a little,” says Saroj.
Soon after her recovery, Pramodini came in touch with the founders of Sheroes and decided to work at the Lucknow branch for sometime before leaving for Delhi. But soon she realised that she misses Saroj.
“It was January 14, 2016, when Saroj proposed but at the time I was completely blind. I was operated upon in July 2017 in Chennai and have got back 20% vision in my left eye. Now we are getting engaged,” says Pramodini, who was busy preparing a dance number for her engagement ceremony.
Comments
0 comment