Eight-limbed goddess girl takes first steps
Sunday, June 15, 2008
Lakshmi Tatma - the girl worshipped as a goddess after she was born with four arms and four legs - has taken her first steps since the extra limbs were removed.
The two-year-old, who was sent into hiding after a circus tried to buy her, was all smiles as she shuffled around in a baby walker.
But this does not mark the end of the struggle for the young girl, named after the eight-limbed Hindu goddess of wealth and fortune.
Despite a gruelling eight months of rehabilitation she will need more surgery on her spine and feet.
Lakshmi was born joined at the spine to a headless, 'parasitic' twin in Bihar, north-eastern India.
She could not use the twin's arms and legs but the conjoined body fed on hers for oxygen and nutrition.
For more than a year she was linked to the twin because her parents feared an operation on the goddess 'reincarnation' would bring bad luck.
But doctors warned that their little girl would probably not survive into her teens unless they acted.
She travelled thousands of kilometres to Bangalore, southern India, where 30 neurosurgeons worked for 27 hours to remove the extra limbs and separate her spinal column and kidney. The toddler now attends a school for the disabled.
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