When she was born, the inhabitants of her village believed she was a gift from God and christened her Lakshmi, after the four-armed Hindu goddess of wealth.
However, her mother, Poonam, and father, Shambu Tatma, both in their twenties and earning about 50p a day as casual labourers, rejected the opportunity to exhibit her to pilgrims as a lucky charm and instead sought treatment.
Tomorrow's programme [a documetary] examines Indian attitudes to disability and the difficulties faced by the rural poor in overcoming deeply help superstitious beliefs.
"What mustn't happen is that Lakshmi is taken away and sold to a circus," the leader of Lakshmi’s village elders told the documentary's makers. "She could have been exhibited like a freak here and earned us a fortune but we never wanted to do that and neither did the parents."
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