While talking to someone that day over phone i realized that i should write about a friend who has been very strong and upright in her life , who has the spine to stick to her beliefs ....... and that , this strength has been an acquired virtue . I have great regard for all the people who have made their lives better on their own , by sheer grit and courage . A few such people have touched my life and have helped me grow too . This is something i wanted to share here for a long time but somehow i lack the drive to come here and share even the greatest things happening around .
This is a friend who i met through a FM radio ( Meow ) and related to her ideas and thoughts immediately , soon we started talking over phone and started visiting each other . She visiting me most of the times , myself being the lazy bum . We were strangers and still we could share so many things easily to each other , guiding each other and listening to each other in the not so strong moments.... we feel so week and helpless sometimes and after each episode come out stronger . She is no more a stranger and slowly we developed a different kind of bonding , most importantly i saw her connect with Mithi almost instantly. Let's call her T ..... a name is not an issue...
Yes , Mithi responded to her the very first time when she talked to her . I used to feel so happy whenever T used to come to my house and call Mithi's name loudly while entering the house .........something nobody else ever did . Unfortunately at that point of time Mithi was less responsive and could not respond to her call but she always understood whenever T talked to her holding her hands. That was the time when Mithi had become very week and her body very very distorted and no other person used to go to her and communicate with her , apart from us family members. This gesture always warmed me up and definitely Mithi too .
May be because T has an elder sister who is a special child , still a child at 50 . Seeing a disabled sibling all her life must have made her sensitive towards the needs and emotions of such a person . So Mithi was the first reason for our bonding , later we realized it was much more than that .
The story i wanted to share here is of that fateful day when Mithi left us . Both Arvind and i were dumbstruck and shocked . We had rushed her to the hospital in a frenzy and saw the doctors struggling with her for almost an hour .... the longest hour of our life ......... and when the doctors calmly informed us .. as if both of us had lost our voice . I don't remember for how long we sat there , still ........ Arvind's colleague , who was there with us , took the phone from his pocket and started checking the call log to find a number of any family member to inform , he dialed one number and gave the phone to Arvind . I do not remember what came to my mind , i took out my phone and dialed T .......... she came immediately . It is now that i realize , the way i felt when she used to communicate with Mithi might have been on my subconscious mind and that might have prompted me to call her. ( i did not call anybody else and that is why i wondered after a while why her name came on my mind )...........This is not what i wanted to share here , it just falls in the sequence of events....... and may be i feel lighter by facing it one more time........
When it was time to go to the cremation , somebody asked me to go home ( thinking it would be difficult for me to see all of that ) and before i could say anything , it was T who said firmly ....... Sangeeta is going there ...and insisted that she would accompany us too . I am telling this because T had lost her husband about 12 years ago in a freaky accident and going to the cremation ground must have been so very difficult to her . Facing our worse memories related to a lost loved one is so very difficult . I could feel that day and for weeks after the day that she was very very depressed . Apart from the tragedy in sight , confronting her own fear and heart wrenching memories had definitely taken a toll . And i know all this while she was silently praying for her own sister too , who is old bodily ( if not mentally ) and is suffering because of many issues .
Whenever i remember that day , T is there in the memories and that act of courage comes alive . It was not easy as we can imagine , but she decided to go for it . She choose to be strong .
Today evening we were talking about the things which make us restless..... the changing season .... this is the season when she lost her husband ( this very month ) and the chill in the air and everything related to this month must be difficult to encounter .......every year , year after year . She brushes off the chill and gives a warm smile......... she chooses to be happy ...
As i have witnessed so many times , we come out stronger when we address our fears face to face . I am not writing this to prove that i am indebted to her gesture ....... That will be an insult to a pure selfless friendship i believe . I just want to convey this to anybody who might get inspired from her . Personal courage and strength is something we achieve by practice and by will . After loosing her husband , T has struggled a lot to raise her two sons single handedly . That is the reason i believe that the courage and the resolve to be strong is an acquired asset and we can all grow towards it . Also, this 'growth' is an ongoing process and we have to work on a daily basis to keep growing ..... Something i am myself struggling to do now a days ..........
Growing is life ........ we choose the direction ..........
Friday, October 22, 2010
Monday, October 18, 2010
who is disabled ???
I met a sweet girl who had specially come to meet me when i was visiting my sister's place .
'Sweet girl' ...this was my first impression for her and she talked to me non stop for a couple of hours together. What i had known about her previously that she works for autistic children and occasionally with blind people. I was so touched by her child like demeanor and eagerness to talk to me about endless topics....all related to the lesser privileged people .
We talked for hours about how satisfying this work can be if we do it from our heart and soul . But she had come to me with a purpose . She had actually come to to tell me not to engage myself into working with disabled and special children . Yes , it may sound weird or even insensitive , but she was talking from experience and i had to give it a thought . She was following me from the very beginning through my sister and often my sister used to tell me to meet this sweet girl i am talking about.
I could understand what her point was . It is really heart breaking to see somebody suffering when you have been at the receiving end yourself . Every time you see somebody suffering the way you have , it revives all the pain once again . More importantly the person is mostly able to deal with the physical pain , but the social stigma ( of being differently able or disabled ) and callous behavior by friends , family and neighbors is most disturbing . The reality is that the closest of people have the most capacity and probability to hurt you . When you see some other person being subjected to the same kind of callousness , it is far more heart wrenching . And that is what 'the sweet girl ' was trying to convince me.
I understand that. Very well . I understand what it is to be ignored by family and friends . As if you no longer exist . As if you exist for a few occasions convenient for them , when they are not ashamed of a 'not so presentable' you . When everybody seems to be associated with you only for a benefit or give and take and you no longer seem to be useful for anybody...... In a country where every kind of disability is associated with beggars ... we are so used to seeing the blind , lame and lepers queuing at temple gates and traffic lights that a person who lost his limbs in an accident is reduced to being a faceless 'bechara' , and 'bechara' here doesn't translate to a 'poor thing' ...... the 'bechara' in this case is a mere subject of charity ( ohh...charity can be different to different people , that i want to discuss in detail some other time ) . Not a competent professional he once was , not a dear friend , not an intelligent thinking mind and not at all a throbbing heart . Not that all of it should happen to me , it's just that i become a bit more perceptive to any of such things happening around ....and even if someone else is at the receiving end , it hurts me to witness the callous attitude. Clearly , it will be all the more painful to intentionally reach out to that kind of people if you are not a heart of steel ( gold is not worth )...
Now about the 'sweet girl ' . In the midway somewhere during the conversation i realized that this girl must be older than me . The wide eyed expression , the fidgety fingers and straight posture with a precarious uneasy back on the sofa was not a young girl's usual demeanor . It was an obscure mind of a grown up woman who was still vacillating between her beliefs and social norms . Her beliefs so pure with a twinkle in her eyes when she talked about how the particular child can only be tamed by her and not his parents when he is violent and it is the touch and a soft voice what is needed to speak to him . The social norms which have alienated this sweet girl from the people she works with and the extended family and everybody who reaches out to her or is hesitated to do so ....
Why ?? What is so special about her . The red head which i thought was a trendy hair color was not so . The covered hands and full sleeve kurta was not due to summer heat ( as any scooter riding girl does these days ) and the dark glasses were not just for the sun and the milky white complexion was not of a parsi or kashmiri origin . In a nation obsessed with fairness , albinism is a disability which is torturous in a girl's life . While she could very well protect her skin and eyes from the scorching sun , the soul so pure was scared to face the world , was unsure of the people's reaction ...always looking for a sense of acceptance....nowhere to be found . I kept thinking about her for weeks and when asked my sister , got to know that everybody in the office makes her the scapegoat and everybody practices the right to pour their own frustration to her , to make her feel inferior .....even feel like a retarded ..... Yes she is often treated like a retarded person in her workplace.
She is not a hard working honest girl , not an intelligent mind , can never be a trusted friend ........... she is just a useless white skin ......... in a nation obsessed with fairness.
Coming to her advice to me .........which was so important to her that she wanted to meet just to convey this to me for a long time. Yes i agree to the concerns she had , and presently i feel a bit worried about being unprepared and unequipped for being a hard core ' worker ' but i know i have the understanding to handle it . It's a matter of time and i will not be able to stop myself . Still i think i do not stop myself when i see someone being ostracized or deprived because of an inferior status or a disability ....any kind of discrimination for that matter. I am specially sensitive to children being ill treated by their own parents and intervene whenever there is such a situation . For me any small little gesture of being useful for someone is good enough ...... and as i read somewhere i now consider myself as a ' work in progress ' ...
'Sweet girl' ...this was my first impression for her and she talked to me non stop for a couple of hours together. What i had known about her previously that she works for autistic children and occasionally with blind people. I was so touched by her child like demeanor and eagerness to talk to me about endless topics....all related to the lesser privileged people .
We talked for hours about how satisfying this work can be if we do it from our heart and soul . But she had come to me with a purpose . She had actually come to to tell me not to engage myself into working with disabled and special children . Yes , it may sound weird or even insensitive , but she was talking from experience and i had to give it a thought . She was following me from the very beginning through my sister and often my sister used to tell me to meet this sweet girl i am talking about.
I could understand what her point was . It is really heart breaking to see somebody suffering when you have been at the receiving end yourself . Every time you see somebody suffering the way you have , it revives all the pain once again . More importantly the person is mostly able to deal with the physical pain , but the social stigma ( of being differently able or disabled ) and callous behavior by friends , family and neighbors is most disturbing . The reality is that the closest of people have the most capacity and probability to hurt you . When you see some other person being subjected to the same kind of callousness , it is far more heart wrenching . And that is what 'the sweet girl ' was trying to convince me.
I understand that. Very well . I understand what it is to be ignored by family and friends . As if you no longer exist . As if you exist for a few occasions convenient for them , when they are not ashamed of a 'not so presentable' you . When everybody seems to be associated with you only for a benefit or give and take and you no longer seem to be useful for anybody...... In a country where every kind of disability is associated with beggars ... we are so used to seeing the blind , lame and lepers queuing at temple gates and traffic lights that a person who lost his limbs in an accident is reduced to being a faceless 'bechara' , and 'bechara' here doesn't translate to a 'poor thing' ...... the 'bechara' in this case is a mere subject of charity ( ohh...charity can be different to different people , that i want to discuss in detail some other time ) . Not a competent professional he once was , not a dear friend , not an intelligent thinking mind and not at all a throbbing heart . Not that all of it should happen to me , it's just that i become a bit more perceptive to any of such things happening around ....and even if someone else is at the receiving end , it hurts me to witness the callous attitude. Clearly , it will be all the more painful to intentionally reach out to that kind of people if you are not a heart of steel ( gold is not worth )...
Now about the 'sweet girl ' . In the midway somewhere during the conversation i realized that this girl must be older than me . The wide eyed expression , the fidgety fingers and straight posture with a precarious uneasy back on the sofa was not a young girl's usual demeanor . It was an obscure mind of a grown up woman who was still vacillating between her beliefs and social norms . Her beliefs so pure with a twinkle in her eyes when she talked about how the particular child can only be tamed by her and not his parents when he is violent and it is the touch and a soft voice what is needed to speak to him . The social norms which have alienated this sweet girl from the people she works with and the extended family and everybody who reaches out to her or is hesitated to do so ....
Why ?? What is so special about her . The red head which i thought was a trendy hair color was not so . The covered hands and full sleeve kurta was not due to summer heat ( as any scooter riding girl does these days ) and the dark glasses were not just for the sun and the milky white complexion was not of a parsi or kashmiri origin . In a nation obsessed with fairness , albinism is a disability which is torturous in a girl's life . While she could very well protect her skin and eyes from the scorching sun , the soul so pure was scared to face the world , was unsure of the people's reaction ...always looking for a sense of acceptance....nowhere to be found . I kept thinking about her for weeks and when asked my sister , got to know that everybody in the office makes her the scapegoat and everybody practices the right to pour their own frustration to her , to make her feel inferior .....even feel like a retarded ..... Yes she is often treated like a retarded person in her workplace.
She is not a hard working honest girl , not an intelligent mind , can never be a trusted friend ........... she is just a useless white skin ......... in a nation obsessed with fairness.
Coming to her advice to me .........which was so important to her that she wanted to meet just to convey this to me for a long time. Yes i agree to the concerns she had , and presently i feel a bit worried about being unprepared and unequipped for being a hard core ' worker ' but i know i have the understanding to handle it . It's a matter of time and i will not be able to stop myself . Still i think i do not stop myself when i see someone being ostracized or deprived because of an inferior status or a disability ....any kind of discrimination for that matter. I am specially sensitive to children being ill treated by their own parents and intervene whenever there is such a situation . For me any small little gesture of being useful for someone is good enough ...... and as i read somewhere i now consider myself as a ' work in progress ' ...
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