A SHRIPAD AND A RAMNATH

 

“Why should I cry for not being an apple,

when I was born an orange; I’d be crying for an illusion.

I may as well cry for not being a horse.”

Donna Williams

 

Last night, after I ended my long, intense and impatient conversation with one of my students – a 17-year-old boy - my wife, who had overheard the entire conversation, started her own ‘lecture’… “Why do you show your irritation and impatience like this?” she, being my dear wife and conscience-keeper, asked me, “Look, it doesn’t work with today’s young boys and girls.”

Today’s young boys and girls? 

Well, my wife was referring to the ‘owls’ who remain awake the whole night… Who wake up from their beds straight for the lunch… Who think Pandemic is a long, happy holiday etc., etc. I was having tough time convincing this 17-year-old, that 9, 10 and 11 in the morning were not ‘too early’ to schedule an online session for him. He was trying to convince me, on the contrary, that I had to ‘bend according to his schedule’…

You can understand, why I was unable to digest it… and throwing it up!

Soon touching 63 – with over four decades of teaching experience - I may be a ‘good teacher’ according to my self-assessment. But, when It comes to ‘patience’… I know how I fare. Anyway, it is said, ‘A teacher appears when the student is ready’. It seems, the students appear to teach their teachers – among several lessons – the important one – ‘Patience’.

Sometimes, it is just enough to imagine the plight of the parents – particularly mothers – of children with ‘special needs’. Want to use a different vocabulary – like ‘Differently-able’… ‘Physically or mentally challenged’ and so on?

A couple of days ago, Shripatd, a ‘special’ young-man, now settled in Chennai, called me up. “Guru (That’s how he likes to pull my leg), Ek khush khabar hai’.

Shripad is 33 now. So, I thought he was getting married. But, in Shripad’s life, the happy moment was different… “Sir, I will be completing 10 years of service in TVS,” he beamed. He continued, “Can I make a request Guru?”

“Please do,” I encouraged.

“Will you call me that day?, Shripad said, “It would make me even happier.”

Today was that day. In the morning, I called up Shripad to wish him… He was on cloud 9!

“One more request Guru,” Shripad said, “Will you write a small Blog about me?... If you can. It would make me very, very happy.”

                                                              (Shripad - my Shivaji Ganeshan!!!)

I have written many times about Shripad. His parents came to see me one morning, about thirteen years ago. He was entering his T.Y. B. Com. Despite the writing- learning-interacting challenges he was facing, the school and the college authorities had allowed him to flower alongside the ‘normal’ students… Shrpad hated to be differentiated… He sat on the first bench in my class and his mother on the last… In the packed classroom, amid my intense flow of teaching, he would stop me a hundred times to ask some questions… He wanted to write when I dictated… It was dead slow and weird… not even he would understand… His mother took down everything so that she could complete and explain to him at home what was taught in the class… At home, his dad taught him pragmatism and humour. His maternal grandparents, who lived with him providing deep sense of acceptance, had only one wish: they wanted Shripad to be a graduate and get a ‘job’. Thus, within days, after writing his T.Y. B. Com exams, the entire family migrated to their home town, Chennai. Soon, TVS absorbed him… where, Shripad has completed ten years, today.

‘Did you enjoy working at TVS?” I asked Shripad, this morning.

“Yes, Guru… Very, very much.”

I remembered my wife’s last night’s lecture!

 

As a sheer co-incidence, I happened to read a Post on FB about another young man, Ramanth, who I had the privilege of teaching when he was pursuing Travel & Tourism course at St. Xavier’s’ college. It was some years after Shripad passed out.

Like Shripad, Ramnath, too, had tremendous amount of self-confidence. Yes, he had the challenges of autism… It was a challenge for a teacher like me to ‘adapt’ to such ‘special needs’… Patience was called for, in loads… Love and compassion were called for, in loads. By the time the student left you, it left you ‘schooled’ well… It left you not only humbled, it left you transformed, too…

Today, reading what Ramnath’s mother had written about her son – His dreams and aspirations… Why it’s important for rest of us to understand, accept, respect and ‘include’ these children in our lives… Why it’s important to see ‘what they are ‘able’ to do with their special strengths rather than what they are unable to do – yes, when I read the Post and watched the video she had shot to fulfill one of his dreams – of becoming a news anchor – my heart literally melted! The next thing I did was a call to Ramnath’s mother… We spoke for nearly fifteen minutes, in which,  I could grasp well the meaning of patience, determination, acceptance, and, above all, love and compassion. She told me as to how the Principal at St. Xavier’s and the faculty had sensitized the class about the idea of ‘inclusion’… She told me, that Ramnath had transformed many lives – without he knowing about it – including the Principal himself (by Principal’s own admission)…  He had volunteered to be a writer and a reader for many blind students… He was an outstanding debater, which makes him watch all the Parliamentary debates like a possessed man… His dreams are only two: To be in a newsroom or somewhere in Mantralaya…

Ramnath’s mother, whose life took a 360-degree turn after her ‘special’ son was born, went about setting up a school for such children… She vehemently advocates the idea of ‘inclusion’.

https://www.facebook.com/ramnathramesh.akhil/videos/3602075383240036

  

“Look, it doesn’t work with today’s boys and girls.”  My wife had shaken me hard, last night, watching the lid go off my pressure cooker…

Mercifully, there is a Shripad and there is a Ramnath to keep my sanity in life…

 

GERALD D’CUNHA

 

Pic's.;  123RF

 

Video: Gowri Ramesh