A Giant Leap

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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