Bengal gets Europe's disabled pilot to push polio campaign

Thu, Jul 3 02:00 AM

As the city goes into another mundane phase of 'Pulse Polio' on Sunday, it will have a new brand ambassador in Gautam Lewis. Born in Kolkata and raised in London, the polio victim is Europe's first pilot with a disability.

"Nothing is difficult, just different," is what drives Gautam and even makes him fly. The 5-foot something man walks on crutches but has defied all odds to emerge a giant.

Now he wants to be the first physically challenged man to fly around the globe. Life, however, was not always like the adrenaline rush of flying a plane for the 31-year-old.

Abandoned by his mother at three for being a polio victim, he moved to a home run by the Missionaries of Charity. Life changed for Gautam seven.

He found an angel in the form of Patricia Lewis, a 25-year-old Irish nuclear physicist, who presently works with the UN. As adoption by foreigners was difficult, Patricia became Gautam's legal guardian and took him along to Auckland in New Zealand. There she officially became his 'mother' and moved to London, where he got admitted to the elite Hill House public school, which had as alumni Prince Charles and some other members of the British royal family.

He opened Level One, a popular nightclub during his college days at Southampton Institute, where he studied International Business Studies and French. With the regular 'sex, drugs and rock-'n'-roll' lifestyle not suiting him, Gautam changed track after seven years and decided to learn flying.

He picked up the basics of the joystick from a Royal Air Force pilot and then went to Cranfield Flight Training School to hone his skills. "When I fly around the world, I will definitely stop at Kolkata to take few of my disabled friends to fly with me.

" Gautam is now in Kolkata for a week to complete his photo-shoot for the 'Full Circle' exhibition of photos on his life, which is scheduled to open with a gala at London. "The Full Circle exhibition will travel places.

From London, it will go to Scotland, then to France and Switzerland. It will reach Kolkata on February 12, which happens to be my birthday," he said.

Gautam is here as a brand ambassador for Rotary International's 'Pulse Polio' campaign. "I am planning to make house-to-house calls all through the 'Polio Week'.

It would be an emotional journey because this city rejected me for having polio," he said.

RECOMMEND THIS STORY