HE was barely 10-years-old when he began to tower over his father. In the next five years he spiralled like the beanstalk in the fairytale and by his 15th birthday stood at a prodigious 6 ft 8". By the time Qayoom Ali was 17, his head was knocking against seven-ft-high doorways.
At seven feet two centimetres, the lad from Sitarganj—a sugarcane-rich village in Nainital district—was a phenomenon to his friends who cracked jokes about his lanky frame (his siblings and parents are ‘normal-sized’). But when it came to basketball, that was where he scored.
Qayoom was noticed by a Uttar Pradesh police basketball coach, and began playing for the state police team despite not being employed with them. Within a year, his performance won him a berth in the senior nationals. And early last year came the highlight of his brief career when he was selected as one of the probables for the Indian team.
"Others had years of experience behind them but I had made it to the top with merely a year’s training," he says proudly. For a boy whose family lived in privation, it was no mean achievement.
Then came the fall. The short burst of Icarian glory ended when Qayoom discovered that nature had played a cruel joke on him. The very strength that had taken him to such heights, had brought him crashing down again. Qayoom was suffering from gigantism, a runaway physical growth instigated by a surfeit of growth hormones which gradually weaken the body’s systems. His dream of playing for the country shattered, the giant from Sitarganj has now been fighting for normalcy for the last one-and-a-half years at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS).
"I was looking forward to the coaching camp at Patiala when I began suffering from painful knees, growing fatigue and jaundice. Though I was cured of jaundice, I progressively became weaker despite medications from a vaid in Lucknow. Soon I was a physical wreck," he recalls.
He was brought to AIIMS where his condition was diagnosed. "When they brought him here, he was in bad shape. He had diabetes and was extremely weak. His nose, ears, forehead, hands, and feet had knobbly accretions shaped by an unregulated supply of growth hormones," says a doctor treating Qayoom. A CAT scan of the brain revealed a tumour, the cornucopia of the growth hormones, in the pituitary gland.
Gigantism is not very rare. "Every year we get about 15 cases. But most of them are adults. Qayoom is special because this disease rarely strikes the young. And because he is still growing (not in height), the growth hormones can cause greater damage. The excess hormones have weakened his muscles and bones. And at a younger age they can cause impotence or infertility," says the doctor. The cause is unknown but scientists believe it could be a mutant cell which multiplies rapidly and forms a tumour.
The usual line of attack against the disease is surgical removal of the tumour supplemented with drugs that sabotage the hormone-making assembly line. The treatment is very costly, and part of Qayoom’s expense was borne by a fellow patient Chauthamal Rajgarhia, while the cost of the expensive drugs was borne by two Indian companies."He has improved considerably since he came," the doctor says. Qayoom grins in agreement. "However," the doctor adds, "we may have to operate on him once more to get rid of the rest of the tumour." With regular medication, it is hoped, Qayoom will be able to lead a normal life. But when told he may have to continue with the treatment that he has been taking for the last one year, Qayoom’s eyes assume a faraway look.
The stricken basketball star has been bed-ridden for the last one-and-a-half years. And though he can now walk with the help of a stick, he hasn’t been able to step out of the hospital. "I am tired of reading magazines and listening to the radio," he moans.
Besides his family, no one visits him. His teammates had deserted him on hearing of his condition. "We don’t need you now. You are as good as dead," he was told by the coach. A few months from his 20th birthday and in his second year of hospitalisation, Qayoom is a testimony to the apathy and lack of support shown to sportsmen.
