The other side

I hated going to my grandmother's house when I was young. One reason was I hated travelling in bus, the other was my uncle. He got angry quickly and that was vented out on the hapless cattle and the dog. He used to beat them mercilessly for no reason and I would cry imagining the pain the animals underwent. He even used to scold us children for every small mistake. My mother told me he was mentally weak because when he was in the 7th standard, he was seen by a Brahmarakshasa residing on a tree in a playground where he went to play. Well, I, mentally a scientist even then, didn't believe a word of it but just nodded. I saw his fits, the eyes shot up, white froth oozing out of his mouth and everybody rushing to him so that he wouldn't fall off the chair till the spasms went away.
As I grew up, I came to know of mentally challenged people and the way they behave. Though I acquired knowledge about his behaviour, I couldn't understand his sudden tempers, mood swings and cruelty towards animals. I thought mental illnesses were no excuse to a person's behaviour towards the innocent. I knew he was spoiled by his family who thought that by giving him all that he wants, they can cure him of his problem.
When I was young, I also saw my mother clutching my baby sister and rushing off to the hospital whenever she acted strange. Then I came to know that she suffered lack of oxygen to the brain at birth and had high fever at times and spasms. By the time I reached the age of understanding it, she was cured. But the agony our family faced whenever she fell ill, which was as often as twice in a week, and the constant fear that it may return, were unforgettable.
All these things came to my mind when I visited Sneha Kiran Spastic Society and saw the children there who needed support all their life to perform even the simplest tasks. I re-lived the agony of the parents who see their children with deve-lopmental disabilities and non-progressive disorders, collec-tively called Cerebral Palsy (CP) every day and remain insecure themselves their entire life.
There, in a shed-like long hall, children were kept in special chairs and taught to move their hands, legs and other parts of the body which were on their way to becoming disabled if left untreated.
These children, with intelligence in their minds and ability to learn what is taught to them, were being stopped by their own body from doing what they wanted to do. They felt trapped within their own body. Their voluntary muscles failed to respond to the instructions of their own brains. It is moving to see kids, who should be outside playing and enjoying with other kids, sitting silently staring at people, not much knowing what they were doing there and not wanting to know.
They looked like living statues sculpted by an amateur sculptor who didn't know enough to fill-in life equally to all parts of the body. These children could move their body parts; but without therapy, the body parts had the possibility of being useless. The good part is that by practice — which should start at the earliest — they can fulfill their basic needs. When I saw these kids, I felt there are some things worth worrying about beyond our own frustrations and anger, desires, love and hate in this world.
We all hear of special children, read in newspapers, watch in TV, grumble that nobody in India is interested in doing anything worthwhile to help them, forget it the next moment we get something else to sympathise upon, and move on. What about the parents or the guardians of such children? They obviously cannot ignore their children and move on like we do. They live in a constant hope that their children too will come out of their physical, and sometimes, mental prisons, and enjoy everything the world offers them just like others.
What I saw made me feel that we are very lucky to have been bestowed with the capabilities of doing what we want, when we want, without begging someone else for help and waiting for that person to do what we wanted. I saw the therapists, volunteers, helpers and the mothers there who have so much of patience to teach such a child. I watched a woman—a mother or a therapist, I don't know— telling a small girl again and again to pick up a blue building block and a red one; to distinguish between the colours. The child simply picked up what she wanted to pick up, or sometimes sat simply, staring. I saw a boy whose wrists and legs were bound by heavy cuffs so that he can move his hands and legs which would otherwise be limp. There was a 24-year-old girl who didn't know much more than a five-year-old. Disturbed to see their innocence, I wondered how they will manage to live in a world full of desires and deceit.
Being short-tempered, I would surely have gotten frustrated and angry that they cannot learn quickly what is taught to them and wouldn't have remained there even for one whole day. Those who work in such centers ought to have so much of love and patience towards children. Patience, isolated from love cannot remain for long. They taught the same thing again and again, for hours together, telling the child gently, till the child learnt to do what is taught. It is in such places that we find humane faces, not in a pub or a club, where people frequent now-a-days trying to find happiness.
Now, seeing those children, I realised my sister was very lucky to have escaped serious damage to her brain and my uncle to have managed to live without the help of others for the simplest of tasks.