This BGMI Gamer Plays With His Tongue And Amputated Arm, Has Garnered Over 1 Mn YouTube Views

For Nikhil Baraik, losing his arms and legs in a freak electric shock accident — only in his mid-20s back in 2020 — didn’t only mean a big blow to his professional life, but also a major disruption to his social life and future plans. However, with sheer perseverance and a deep passion for gaming/vlogging, Baraik’s YouTube channel ADN GamingYT boasts over 301,000 subscribers and livestreams that have garnered over a million views. 

Not having his hands to play Battlegrounds Mobile India (BGMI) on a smartphone was an enormous hurdle that took Baraik a lot of practice and an iron-willed drive to prove himself to fellow gamers.

Overcoming The Shock

Residing in Assam’s Mangaldoi, Baraik doesn’t come from an affluent background. “We are Adivasis living in a tea estate,” he told ABP Live. “After my 10th standard examinations, I got married. To earn for my family, I went to Bengaluru in 2018, a year before we had a daughter.” 

Baraik was working in a tiles company in 2020 when he suffered a major electric shock at his workplace. After being admitted to a hospital, the doctors told Baraik’s family that his arms and legs were badly infected and the only way he’d survive was by amputation of the limbs. 

He returned to Assam after about six months and was completely restricted to his home. Unable to move, his family would help him with his daily chores. Baraik would spend his day watching movies and videos on his smartphone. Somehow, he figured out that he could use his tongue to tap on his phone screen to control videos, open apps, and carry out the various other tasks we use our fingers to do. 

“I always had a keen interest on smartphones, ever since I was a kid,” Baraik said. “Remember that Snake game that used to be available on old Nokia phones? That used to be my favourite video game back then.”

While operating the phone with his tongue, Baraik came across BGMI and was “immediately engaged”. “Somehow, I found that I could control my character and shoot enemies in the game using my tongue,” he said.

Why BGMI? There’s no other reason but comfort, as per Baraik. “I did try Call of Duty Mobile and Free Fire, but somehow I found the controls of BGMI much easier and responsive to my tongue,” he explained.

For Baraik, playing an online videogame and interacting with fellow gamers during matches was like a new lease on life.

“Jab main games khelta hu, tab dunia dunia lagta hai, warna sab soona soona lagta hai [When I play games, the world feels normal, otherwise everything seems so empty],” Baraik mused.

Developing A ‘Taste’ For Wins

If you have never played BGMI, let’s quickly understand how the game’s control works on a smartphone. The main buttons used to control your player are placed at the bottom left and bottom right corner of the screen. The buttons that control the player’s movements and camera viewpoints are placed on the bottom left (these controls are collectively called the joystick in gaming jargon). The buttons that control the player’s weapon actions (shooting, targeting, hurling grenades, etc) are placed on the bottom right. So, to play the game as it’s designed for general users, you would need both your left and right hands to control your player (just like any regular game controller).

Now, if someone were to play the game without hands and just use their tongue, it would still mean that they would have to switch between the left (movement) and right (action) controls almost simultaneously. Of course, that’s not possible. And this hampered Baraik’s performance a lot. 

The online gaming community is pretty supportive but in an aggressively competitive way. Taking the jo-jeeta-wahi-Sikander ideology to heart, winners would often exercise their bragging rights to the utmost, while subpar or amateur players — called ‘noobs’ in gaming lingo — must face a bit of ragging from other players before they can ‘git gud’.

When Baraik started playing online matches on BGMI, his skills were understandably not up to the mark. “I would tell my online rivals that I was only playing with my tongue, but no one would believe me,” said Baraik. “They would challenge me and ask me for proof that I was indeed playing with tongue.”

This would eventually lead to Baraik taking help from his friends and family to record his gaming sessions and putting the videos up on YouTube. 

“It was all a bit of timepass at first,” said Baraik. “I had no idea about earning or seeing growth from videos on YouTube.” However, with time, Baraik’s videos slowly started going viral. His channel started taking shape at a comfortable pace.

“My friends would come up to me and say that my latest video got some 500 views on YouTube, and it would excite me,” said Baraik. “Most of the videos were shared by my friends to others via WhatsApp and slowly, my number of views and subscribers would start increasing.”

His family members would set up his smartphone on a stand in front of his mouth, and also set up the camera and control it to help Baraik. While he started with a very basic setup, he has been streaming with a slightly more advanced/professional setup for over a year now. 

However, Baraik was still determined to ‘git gud’ and playing with just his tongue was simply not cutting it. 

“My left arm injury is a bit unique,” said Baraik. “After the amputation, my left arm is not too short and not too long, which sort of allowed me to comfortably control the left on-screen buttons, while I used my tongue to control the right buttons.”

With practice, Baraik soon developed the ability to control both the left and right buttons simultaneously, giving his skills a much-needed boost and helping him last longer in matches and even take some crazy shots that must be seen to be believed.

“I love it when viewers comment on my gameplay and skills,” said Baraik. “There’s no other feeling that comes close to that level of ecstasy.”