Author and journalist Arun Shourie would occasionally bring his differently-abled son to office.
The moment he would enter the office with his son, people would run to help him, but Mr. Shourie would stop them saying: “Please don’t. Thank you. I will do it myself...”.
Similarly, he would be seen in Nehru Park, handling the wheelchair and enjoying the lush green park with his son. Mr. Shourie is among those parents who took up the “challenge” of dealing with differently-abled children with utmost love and dignity, than treating them as burden.
One other parent like him is Manjula Mahajan, who is the mother of visually-impaired twins Prachi and Prangya who are first-year students at Miranda House. The twins have been to the Rashtrapati Bhavan twice and given speeches in front both President Pranab Mukherjee and former President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam.
Says Manjula: “My girls were not born visually-challenged. We found out six months after their birth. Sometimes they tell me that if they could see they would have done better in school. It hurts me emotionally. They say so for various reasons — peer pressure, teachers’ attitude and due to lack of facilities in college. Now that they are grow up, I am concerned about their marriage. I worry whether they will get good partners who respect them the way they are. We as parents also have to make sure they settle down before we die so they could take care of themselves financially in case of any eventuality.”
Another challenge, she says, is to ensure they have the same edge as other “normal” girls. “For instance, when they go to a party I make them dress up like other girls, so they don’t feel different or left out.”
However, she adds, her girls are her inspiration too. Being “tech-savvy”, they handle her e-mail account and bank accounts.
Talking about her teenage daughter Smriti, Krishna Kumar, a teacher at Kendriya Vidyalaya in R.K. Puram, said: “The biggest challenge for a differently-abled child is medical arrangements and for girls, security. My daughter is beautiful. It is a challenge to save her from abuse — outside or, at times, even within the family. One has to be with her all the time. A labourer close to our house was staring at her when I was making her sit on the chair. It was upsetting. I had to ask him to mind his own business.”
Ms. Kumar, who also runs an NGO called Sonal Smriti for underprivileged differently-abled children in Faridabad, added that people can be insensitive. They call them “pagal or bechara/bechari ”, and laugh about it. They “show” their sympathy, but won’t come forward to help them financially or otherwise. “It affects their morale and remains a constant challenge for us.”
For Ashok Kumar Kanojia, a car cleaner in Dwarka whose son is hearing-impaired and daughter suffers from learning disabilities, says: “Education and “walking with them on the road are the biggest challenges for me. Bablu’s speech is affected due to his hearing problem, while my daughter is the youngest and the only one among my six boys. I am a poor man. I don’t even understand their challenges properly. I don’t know how I will bring them up...”.
