How often do you come across the word ‘Spastic’ or do you see a ‘Spastic Child or Individual’? What makes them different from us and how are they able to sustain in a competitive world of emerging technologies and culture shifts?
On a recent visit to the ‘Spastics Society of Tamil Nadu’ on 21st September, 2010, I was introduced to the ‘World of Unknown’. Located in the capital of Tamil Nadu, this non-government school is run for individuals with various conditions like ‘Cerebral palsy’ and ‘multiple disability’ impairing the functioning of one or multiple parts of the human body.
A daily routing of the school involves an imperative yoga session every morning. Noticeable amongst these children are the very reason for their existence, their mothers. ‘Mothers’ are the most beautiful creation by God and yes, no one can love you more than her. True to what’s being said about them, they come to the school daily, help their children - exercise, sit, walk, play, study, showering their undying and unconditional love with pure dedication and most importantly ‘patience’. Caring a physically or mentally challenged child itself is a challenge and those dedicating their lives to empowering and ameliorating the lives of those affected are commendable. To ponder on what will happen to these children is a puzzle. With life being tough as it is, losing your only support would be devastating but then, will they be able to understand it?
Living with a mission to make each admitted child independent, the school provides programs on making paper bags, clothes, candles, writing, typing and so on to earn a decent amount for survival against the evermore hungry ‘normal’ individuals. While we want to earn more money to invest on buying lands, homes, cars and all the expenses of the so-called high class, a challenged individual has nothing to think or desire. If you were to ask them about what is money, love, greed, manipulation, all you can get is a simple look with a smile or absolutely nothing. This is why I have said ‘Knowing the unknown’ as in the simplest of terms, it is just knowing a person unknown to the realities and cruelties of life.
With a mind like a bird flying in the open sky, free from all the burdens and cravings of the
material life, all they ever want and think is something what you can never think of. I on the other hand feel life has been blissful in the cruelest form. Heading back home on sharing my experience with my loved ones, I asked myself ‘what will I do if I was like those mothers’, ‘what life has in store for me’, ‘will I be a winner or a loser’, till few lines at the school struck my mind – ‘The tragedy of life is not that it ends so soon, but we wait so long to begin it’. Whatever life has in store for me, I won’t give in so easily.
