Leela Bas­deo can on­ly be de­scribed as a woman of true grit, courage, and strength.

Bas­deo, 46, has sur­vived be­ing set on fire by her male com­pan­ion, then hav­ing to bury her hus­band, broth­er, and fa­ther in un­der one year.

Her chal­lenges have been in­sur­mount­able but Bas­deo who has fought the odds con­tin­ues to be an in­spi­ra­tion to women who may have suf­fered a sim­i­lar fate.

Bas­deo re­mem­bered en­joy­ing her child­hood days with her iden­ti­cal twin sis­ter, Lena. They were like to two peas in a pod.

That bond was bro­ken when Leela got mar­ried to Rat­tan Ku­mar Bas­deo.

Lena al­so start­ed a fam­i­ly and moved to Cana­da where she still lives to­day.

Bas­deo, a moth­er of two, ad­mit­ted that af­ter 16 years of mar­riage her re­la­tion­ship be­came strained and she moved out of her mar­i­tal home. In 2006 she got a di­vorce.

She even­tu­al­ly found some­one new in her life whom she be­gan liv­ing with.

From that re­la­tion­ship, Bas­deo pro­duced a son who is now 12.

How­ev­er, in No­vem­ber of 2015, Bas­deo said in an un­ex­pect­ed move her part­ner who was prepar­ing to mow the lawn walked in­to their home hold­ing a con­tain­er of gaso­line and threw it on the up­per left side of her and set her ablaze.

As the flames en­gulfed her body, Bas­deo re­mem­bered her arm­less dress burn­ing and stick­ing on her chest, bel­ly, and back.

Her face and left hand were al­so scorched.

As her part­ner looked on, Bas­deo tried to rip pieces of the burn­ing dress off her while she rolled on the ground to put out the flames.

When she fi­nal­ly got the dress off, Bas­deo rushed in­to her bed­room where she put on fresh clothes and ran to her neigh­bour's home where she was placed un­der an out­side tap to soothe the burns.

Bas­deo said up to this day she can’t re­mem­ber scream­ing for help or cry­ing out in pain.

"Prob­a­bly my body went in­to deep shock. I nev­er ex­pect­ed some­thing like this to hap­pen," she re­called.

She was rushed to the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex, Mt Hope, and ward­ed in the In­ten­sive Care Unit suf­fer­ing from sec­ond and third-de­gree burns.

The doc­tors told Bas­deo's fam­i­ly she had a slim chance of sur­vival due to the sever­i­ty of her burns.

For Bas­deo it was touch and go.

"I spent a month in ICU fight­ing for my life and an­oth­er two months on the sur­gi­cal ward re­cov­er­ing. It was an or­deal. My life was al­most snatched from me. My fam­i­ly didn't like what hap­pened. But I thanked God for sav­ing my life. It could have been worse."

Dur­ing her stay at the hos­pi­tal, Bas­deo ad­mit­ted that Rat­tan, her first hus­band, start­ed vis­it­ing and car­ing for her and their love was reignit­ed.

Doc­tors al­so per­formed three skin grafts to cov­er up the hor­ri­ble scars.

Af­ter be­ing dis­charged from the hos­pi­tal Bas­deo moved back in­to Rat­tan’s home in Cunu­pia.

She opt­ed not to press charges against her at­tack­er which in­fu­ri­at­ed her fam­i­ly.

Bas­deo ad­mit­ted that due to Rat­tan’s car­ing na­ture her love for him grew.

Last Oc­to­ber, in a shock­ing move, Bas­deo said Rat­tan pro­posed to her and they agreed to get mar­ried the fol­low­ing month un­der Hin­du rites.

But soon af­ter, Rat­tan, 53, fell ill and a pun­dit had re­set their wed­ding date for June 26 next month.

As Bas­deo ea­ger­ly planned and pre­pared for her wed­ding, Rat­tan’s health got pro­gres­sive­ly worst.

On Jan­u­ary 2, Bas­deo’s life came tum­bling down when Rat­tan who worked in a farm died from lep­tospiro­sis, an in­fec­tious bac­te­r­i­al dis­ease caused by rats and oth­er mam­mals which can be trans­mit­ted to hu­mans.

This tore her to pieces and shat­tered her heart.

"It was a hard blow for me," she said.

Just as Bas­deo be­gan com­ing to terms with Rat­tan’s death, her 79-year-old fa­ther, Bas­deo Ram­jass, died on May 14, some 12 days ago.

Last June, Bas­deo al­so buried her broth­er Ke­w­al Bas­deo, 52, af­ter he was pushed from a mov­ing van in Blan­chisseuse.

In less than one year, Bas­deo had to cope with three deaths.

Bas­deo said she har­bours no mal­ice or hate against her at­tack­er who she still talks to.

"He is the fa­ther of my son. You for­give but you will nev­er for­get. I am not look­ing for re­venge. I am leav­ing every­thing in the hands of God," Bas­deo said.

Though some of the burns are still vis­i­ble on her left arm, Bas­deo does not let it both­er her.

"At first it was hard to look at the mir­ror...to see the scars...the con­stant re­minder of what took place. Now I have learned to ac­cept the things I can­not change, courage to change the things I can and wis­dom to know the dif­fer­ence," said Bas­deo, who main­tained a broad smile and pos­i­tive spir­it through­out the in­ter­view.

Bas­deo now lives by the seren­i­ty prayer, stat­ing that God has been her pil­lar of strength, in­spi­ra­tion, and courage.

"With­out God, my life would have been in sham­bles. I just want oth­er women to know that life is some­times un­fair and cru­el but don't let it bring you down...build courage and strength through God to live and fight an­oth­er day. With God all things are pos­si­ble."