What if a child’s brush with leprosy launched a Bollywood legend? Dimple Kapadia’s story answers that. Stricken at 12, enduring taunts amid treatment, she conquered the illness and dazzled in ‘Bobby’, all while shouldering a message of hope.
Leprosy thrives on misconception more than might. Mycobacterium leprae’s handiwork yields subtle signs—skin patches, nerve deadening—readily reversed by free WHO-backed drugs. Hansen’s 1873 discovery paved curative paths, yet myths persist, addressed yearly on January 23.
Dimple peels back layers: unaware of ‘leprosy’s’ weight, a bystander’s slur about school expulsion stung, but ‘Bobby’s’ call from Raj Kapoor reframed her narrative into magic.
Echoing her, Amitabh Bachchan rails against biases in global forums since 2018. R. Madhavan, Lepra India’s goodwill envoy, champions detection as the panacea, tackling comorbid threats.
Together, they decode the epidemic’s core flaw: not incurability, but inhumanness. Healed individuals reclaim lives, thwarted only by exclusion. Dimple’s odyssey—from pariah potential to pantheon—ignites change. Let empathy be the antidote; in unity, leprosy loses its grip.