A recent documentary titled An Inspiration, a Goa University project by Michael Koola, a St Xavier’s College, Mapusa, student who’s a special adult and despite his cerebral palsy, he brings to light, Goa’s heroes who have fought their deformity.
One such adult is Agostinho Fernandes, a well-known music teacher from Curtorim, who lost growth and sensation in his limbs at the age of nine months. But despite his tiny legs with deformed knees and limbs, Agostinho drives a car, teaches music, travels places, climbs ladders and trees and changes taps and walks everywhere and all this is done on his hands.
“A doctor wrongly administered an injection when I was nine months and I lost sensation in my limbs and since then I have been deformed. As a child, I had to drop out of school because my parents couldn’t carry me any longer but I was determined to do everything on my own as a young child,” explains Agostinho who talks with confidence and doesn’t reveal his struggle.
Agostinho recollects how he would walk to school on his hands and people would think he was a disabled beggar and most often they would throw coins at him but he would avoid these situations by moving AHEAD and staying quite.
Today, Agostinho is known across Margao, Curtorim, Chandor, Maina and Fatorda that too as a music teacher who teaches the keyboard and piano but he is well known for motivating and teaching students in batches at their homes while Agostinho drives to their homes in a specially modified car for him wherein the accelerator, sensor clutch and brake of his Wagon R are modified to be used by his hands.
Agostinho showed us his feat, felicitations and awards he has won and his many videos of him climbing trees, climbing ladders, changing tiles and changing taps despite his ability with his enormous strength in his arms. With slippers on those same hands, he’s walking and working is all dependable only on his hands.
Agostinho tells us how over the last 15 years he has ticked off many of his dreams over the last decade from walking on his hands, driving cars, raising a family and having a child and having achieved what people don’t do with both their hands and legs.
“I feel much fulfilled a lot in my condition with God’s grace and the challenges in front of me have been many. I feel I owe a lot to the people who have encouraged me,” explains Agostinho speaking on his hands, at his sleepy village at Curtorim.
