All of us have had at least “aha” moment that has wrought significant changes in
how we think, or work or live our lives.
Damini has been
having an “aha” year so far. And I would like to brag.
Most of Damini's
growth has been in spurts, interspersed with long periods of seeming inaction.
We've been on cruise control for a while now, with Shahrukh Khan still in the
passenger seat. All parent teacher meets seemed to indicate that Damini was
probably plateauing in reading, writing, math and what have you. Maybe it was
time to whip out the calculator considering that even simple addition was a hit
or miss most of the time. She seemed pretty content with her routine: wake up,
cycle, school, cycle, watch movie, to bed again.
Suddenly Damini
seems to have found another gear. Over the last year it has manifested in an
amazing array of changes.
First things
first, please note the new hairstyle after the first ever salon visit. We have
been trying to get her onto a barber's chair for the last 15 years. She finally
relented and fired me as her hairdresser in chief.
We've been
consciously trying to introduce variety into her experiences and competence.
Given the academic stalemate, we were getting a little desperate in our search
for alternative skills and competence. I do not know about other parents of
differently-abled children, but my biggest fear always is that Damini will have
nothing to do with her life. Up until now, other than dance (the Bollywood
kind) every other suggestion has been met with lukewarm interest or
indifference.
After a lot of
deliberation we nudged her into movement and art therapy. We decided along with
Shabana, her facilitator that the focus would be on being able to understand
and verbalise her feelings, and adding depth to her social interactions and
communication. So far, we have had to depend only on her facial expressions and
tone of voice when she says "I’m happy” in order to decipher her mood. We
found her willing! What’s more, three months down the line she was still looking
forward to these sessions.
We found a music
school that took her in for guitar lessons (the guitar that was bought as a
birthday gift and randomly strummed-on in tandem with her favourite songs). I
will never forget how she hitched the guitar onto her back like a seasoned
musician and walked out of the house for her first lesson.
Her teacher started
a notebook for her to follow and I thought that was really ambitious of him.
Imagine how gobsmacked I was to see her pick the C scale and “twinkle twinkle little star” from the book!
We were on a roll.
Five months ago
we enrolled her into yoga. Three months on, the enthusiasm was persistent
enough to invest in dedicated yoga gear. Anu, her feisty yoga instructor had
worked on a routine that eased her into the 'Asanas' and broke them down into a
series of easy steps. She even created a funky chart for her to follow.
Almost a year
after we started the first class, Damini really looks forward to 'Music Mondays’
'Dance Tuesdays’ and 'Yoga Thursdays'. What is heartening to observe is that
she has developed staying power, something that was sorely missing in all our
previous attempts at creating interests.
One of the most
heartening developments has been in her ability to give expression to her
feelings, especially those that are distressing to her. Up until now, she has
always dealt with them by repeatedly telling herself and everyone around her
that "I'm happy", her facial expression saying anything but. If she
got really upset then she would say, "I have fever, I'm not well".
Lately we find
her attempting to verbalise the sources of her distress. So when her 'buddy'
and chauffeur Das went on his annual holiday, she came to me as said "I'm
sad Das uncle's gone to Assam". One day out of the blue, she refused to go
to school. When asked why, she said, " I have no friends, there are only
boys".
I felt sad for
her, but I was so thrilled that she could tell me that!
Another thing
she is finally getting is the concept of “why”. We take our ability to do a simple
cause- consequence analysis so completely for granted, and it's taken Damini's
struggle with it for me to realise how complex it really is. We also find her
actively analysing new experiences and trying to interpret and categorise them
on the basis of previous ones.
I had made a different
curry one day. After two spoons of it, she told me "this is just like
pickle". I realised she had isolated the flavour of ground mustard in it,
which is the dominating taste in pickle. I saw this happen again in a completely
different instance: I was watching a video of a really precocious kid that had
been forwarded to me. Damini could not see it but she could hear it. She
commented "just like Samarth in New York” referring to her cousin whom she
had visited three years ago. She had categorised the accent. We were driving
one day in town, and she looked out and said "Amma look at the
castle". I know there is no castle in Bangalore, so I thought this was
just like the nonexistent moon that she always sees when we drive out. But she
kept looking out and she was pointing to the UB city tower (Bangalore's ode to
the Empire State Building) which must in some angle look like the Disney logo
to her.
Damini has also
been tapping into the fine art of 'jugaad' and the less dramatic faculty of
problem solving. This picture says it all I think.
This was her
solution when one of her slippers snapped. She had been walking around like
this for a couple of days before anyone noticed. We have noticed that she is
decreasingly dependent on us to deal with problems, be it mastering the
microwave to warm her food, to using her headphones to hold her hoodie in
place.
Academically
this has been the year of math. After years of stagnation, the gestalt has
finally happened for carry over addition, subtraction and multiplication. Not
only has she “gotten it”, she is tripping on the new found ease with these
concepts.
The cherry on
the top of this sundae really is discovering humour: there are the 'fart jokes'
we have to laugh at, then there are these really funny one-liners that
completely take us by surprise. One day after yoga, I asked her what she did in
her session. She said, " we did, surya namaskar, cobra, tummy sandwich,
puppy pose, then we started 'om-ing'". On another day she told us "I
am therapist, dimaag (brain) ka doctor". Then one day she decided to go to
school like this:
Inspired no
doubt by this:
 |
| Bollywood actress Katrina Kaif in "Kala Chashma" |
Somewhere all of
this is contributing to a growing assertiveness and a new depth in her social
interactions. We find ourselves increasingly participating in activities that
she has decided on. That's how we found ourselves having 'picnic' on our family
room floor, on newspapers spread out, and desperately fending the dogs off.
And while
"Hi, it's my birthday" is still her opening gambit, conversations are
becoming increasingly current and situational, and last many more sentences.
Considering all
these leaps she's been making, I think it's only fitting that she has a new
idol. Yes. Move over Shahrukh Khan, you've been replaced. By a female (at
last!). It's Alia Bhatt, and it is being demonstrated very differently. We draw
Alia, we write letters to Alia, and we build fantasies of Alia visiting us.
So Alia, if you
ever read this, there is cake and biryani and ice cream waiting for you here.
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