An Enduring Spirit On And Off The Track: Kumudu Priyanka
by Pamodi Hewawaravita
Everystory Sri Lanka is delighted to presents a new short series under its flagship program, “Stories of Sri Lankan Women,” with the support of the Embassy of France to Sri Lanka. This series spotlights the inspiring journeys of three remarkable sportswomen from the island.
Kumudu Priyanka has dreamt of being an Olympic hero since 2006, when she first started her training, less than a year after a hand grenade explosion in her backyard led to her losing her hands and sight in one eye. From being too afraid to show her disability when taking the bus to holding a World Record in the Women’s 200m T45 category (a disability sport classification for those with double above or below the elbow amputations) when competing at the Para Asian Games in 2010, Kumudu’s life has been one of conscious effort and soaring dreams.
Hailing from a village in the Monaragala District, Kumudu was at home after her Ordinary Level examinations when her mother found a hand grenade in their garden. Not knowing what it was, she handed it to Kumudu. “When I took it from her hand, I trampled the ‘butt’ of it and it exploded. I was around this height back then also, and since it exploded upwards from my hands, my hands, my chest, and my eye was injured. I lost my hands and I lost sight in one eye.” She describes how she had to relearn everything after her accident, first learning to eat food with a spoon and then learning to comb her hair by herself by inserting a rubber mesh into her comb. “My hair was long back then,” she reminisces, pointing to her hair now, which sits just over the back of her neck, and emphasising that she cut it short because she did not want to burden anyone by asking for help.
In this way, Kumudu would spend the years immediately after her accident determined to be independent. “When I first came to Colombo to pursue sports, I was staying at Maligawatta with a few other girls. They were helping me because I couldn’t do things by myself, but after a while, I realised that it was a problem for them too. I thought to myself: why am I troubling someone else? I needed to learn to do things by myself.”
Having been raised by a single mother after her father passed away, even as a child, Kumudu had wanted to move forward in life “somehow,” and this determination did not disappear after her accident. When opportunity came knocking on her door in January 2006, about eight months after her accident, she didn’t hesitate for too long before deciding to move to Colombo. “I got injured on 24th May 2005, and in January 2006, I met a Sir. He came to my house, looking for me — Sir Premadasa Dissanayake. He was part of a sports society, and he was working on a project in the Monaragala District involving the rehabilitation of disabled people. Sir had learned about me from the AG office and came to my house.”
Kumudu says she was alone at home when Premadasa Sir first visited her. “I didn’t even go outside to meet him. I was very timid,” she recollects, adding that even though she didn’t speak with him on that first day, she felt he was genuinely trying to help her. When she met him for the second time, she realised that he was disabled as well. “That was when I heard his story too — that he was disabled at the age of 18 years and had built his life from there, from a wheelchair. He was now helping other disabled people, and that story really encouraged me. He told me that he believed that sports was the only way for me to build my life, and that is how I came into sports.”
Kumudu attributes her entry into sports to her good fortune, but her journey hasn’t been easy. Although she participated in her first international competition in 2006, she was forced to reduce her involvement in sports because her mother could not help her. “I am an elder sister to two sisters. I was always thinking that I should do something with my life, find some money. I need more facilities now than what I needed when I first entered sports in 2006. With all of that, I was always intent on earning money.”
That is when she came across MAS Holdings, who is currently her employer. She describes her relationship with MAS as a “big strength,” noting that her colleagues had never looked at her as someone with a disability alone. “They just looked at what I could do and what I wanted to learn and helped me do that. At MAS, they give the three-month machine learning experience to everyone, and I have completed this and developed from there onwards. They never told me to stop because I couldn’t do it. They gave me the freedom to learn and taught me everything.”
Learning to accept her disability has also not been an easy task for Kumudu. She highlights how she attempted to hide her hands by wearing long sleeves in public. “Now it’s not like that. I used to always try to hide my disability, but now I don’t do that.” Kumudu reiterates that the negative experiences that she faced when she was first learning to live with her disability shouldn’t be the norm in the world. “Even when I walk on the road, there have been many times I’ve heard, “Ah, that girl doesn’t have hands.” But I smile and walk on because I’ve strengthened my mind to that level now. But if someone is young and faces society like this, they come with a lot of hardship and stress. So if they hear something like that, their morale will be weakened.”
Her intention to ensure that other disabled people are not discouraged has shaped her dreams for the future as she hopes to one day help someone who has faced an incident similar to hers. She knowingly adds that as a woman, resistance means to challenge the statusquo in “every way.” “When I came to sports, my intention was to somehow excel in life. That is what Premadasa Sir also said with conviction. That is what I felt in my heart, too. He passed away in 2013, and I still can’t believe he passed away. I still feel like he is talking to me,” Kumudu’s voice wavers as she outlines her journey from age 16. Two decades later, she achieved what she set out to do, being the only woman representing Sri Lanka at the 2020 Paralympics in Tokyo.
She recollects how the COVID-19 pandemic hit when she was so close to realising her Olympic dream. “When I did get the chance, it was very challenging with the COVID-19 pandemic. We couldn’t go out, we couldn’t train, we were quarantined. We had to train in a bubble.” Kumudu’s journey has been one of hurdles, but true to her enduring spirit both on and off the track, she has managed to write her own story in the world’s history books.
(Pamodi Hewawaravita is primarily a journalist, exploring stories that affect communities around Sri Lanka. She also contributes to research in the fields of labour and gender. When not writing, she spends her time reading, travelling around the island, or engaging in her guilty pleasure of scrolling through Tik Tok. You can find more of her work here.)
Reference Links and Further Reading
- Kumudu Priyanka, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kumudu_Priyanka
- Kumudu delivers personal best in T47 long jump, https://island.lk/kumudu-delivers-personal-best-in-t47-long-jump/
- The great Paralympic journey of a regenerated Para Athlete, https://www.sundaytimes.lk/210912/sports/the-great-paralympic-journey-of-a-regenerated-para-athlete-455021.html
For more information please email storiesofslwomen@everystorysl.org