Not legs, Dev Mishra shakes arms to groove to music

"When I lose myself to the music and dance, nothing else seems to matter," says resident of Khar-Danda, Dev Mishra, who lost both his legs in a railway accident three years ago. His dreams of qualifying in an audition for a soon-to-start dance reality show keep him hopeful, says the 21-year-old, demonstrating the classic moonwalk-like step, which he attempts with his hands.

Mishra is the youngest of the three siblings, who lost their father at a very young age. Mishra and his siblings were raised by his mother, Vandana Devi, who worked as a labourer on other people's farms and homes. No sooner did he drop out of Class VIII that he was sent off to work with a contractor in Hyderabad as a welder.

"I must have been barely 15 but it felt fun to be stepping out of my village and taking a train to such a far away place," he recalls. "I would remit all the money I earned back home as the contractor gave all employees a shed to stay and food."

It was on one such bi-annual visit back home on 1 June, 2015 that disaster struck Mishra at 17. When trying to board the unreserved bogie of his train, which was chugging into Barauni station, he was pushed in the melee, lost his balance and fell on the tracks through the gap. The train ran him over and amputated both his legs above his knees. "I kept screaming but nobody could do anything to help me till the train was in position. Later when it had moved away, some people pulled me up since another train was coming and I lay on the platform for three hours screaming and begging people to help me. While people stopped to look no one came forward to help for over three hours when I lost a lot of blood."

Upon recovery, Mihra tried to find work but no one was willing to hire him. "I still feel that the rejection I faced from people who wanted to pity me, buy me a meal at the most and ask me to move on felt worse than the train running over my legs." As if this weren't enough, Mishra's brother too began to criticise the family because "he had to fend for them forever".

Bu this only encouraged Mishra to make a final attempt at going to Jaipur to get prosthetic feet. Yet, as luck would have it, the prosthetic did not fit. With his hopes now lying at the edge, Mishra sat at Jaipur station waiting for his return train. All the while, he kept thinking of his brother's jibes and taunts. On a whim, he boarded a Mumbai-bound train and came here in August 2017. "I knew no one and when I got off at Bandra, the sky was overcast and it was raining like crazy," he remembers as the first hint of emotion hits his voice, even as he continues to bravely hold his smile.

"I had to live on alms, sleeping on the footpaths off Carter Road, eating leftovers and often even going hungry when nothing else was available." "I'd see all these glamorous people come for walks, looking fit in their fancy clothes and then felt that I should also work out." It was during such "workouts," that a local dance instructor, Vishal Paswan noticed him and began helping him out. "Soon we were talking and he told me he is a dancer. I told him to teach me some moves and he was quite surprised at how quickly I picked them up."

This became a routine and Paswan would soon help him rent a small place at Khar Danda. "He has helped me find stage shows which help me get by and I have also enrolled for Class XII exams to appear privately and I am preparing to audition for major dance reality show."

When asked if life has taught him anything he would like to share he stares out beyond the mangroves near his home to say: "If I could do it, anybody can."