Remember the Kerala professor whose arm was chopped off?

It was two years ago that extremists, in the name of defending their religion, chopped off the arm of a college professor in Kerala.  In front of his family. 

As if this wasn't enough, his employer soon fired him from his teaching job.

Whatever happened to him since then?

Two years after his right palm was chopped off by alleged activists of the Popular Front of India (PFI), T.J. Joseph, former professor of Newman College, Thodupuzha, is still battling physical disability.
The palm that was stitched back, his left hand and left leg still give him a great deal of pain and discomfort.

All these mean that he has been forced to learn to live a new life:

“I learned to write with the left hand and I still struggle with the fingers in the right hand as I can’t fold them. I also can’t fold the little finger in my left hand. I can’t walk properly as I had multiple fractures on the left leg as well,” he said.

How terrible!

I am certain that I do not have even the tiniest percentage of the perseverance and determination that Joseph has.

Writhing in pain, T J Joseph is writing a book with his left hand, two years after that fateful Sunday.
In between, life taught some bitter lessons to Joseph who taught Malayalam language and literature for hundreds of students over the years.
 But he is on a positive note.
 “There is a cause for every action. I am writing the book to tell the world that don’t ever give up,” he reveals his intention behind the endeavour.
Writing is not an easy affair for Joseph as his right hand is yet to regain its strength after the attack while his family considers July 4 as his day of resurrection.
The book would narrate his life in exile after a case against him, the attack, the painful hospital days and his vision about life.
 He expects to complete the book in a year’s time.

So, were the brutal attackers tried and sentenced to time in prison?  Did the college realize its idiocy in firing him? 

No and No :(

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) which conducted the probe is yet to file the final chargesheet.
The case Joseph filed against the college management is before the University Appellate Tribunal in Thiruvananthapuram. “I have two more years of service and I hope I will be reinstated as I have done nothing wrong,” he said.

A tragic irony that all these happened in Kerala, which is often hailed as a progressive state!  To put it differently, if such things can happen in a "progressive" Kerala, then one has to wonder how much worse things might be in Bihar or Orissa--more than whatever is reported, that is!