Two and a half years have passed by since I was first in the campus of Ashraya and even now, when I go there every week, it seems to be a new experience. As I walked to the campus yesterday, I was wondering how quickly time moves. It was not the first time that I was in such a place but it was a very special experience to be with kids around you who are not just special but very talented as well. During the initial days, I was with a GE Volunteers team and had volunteered to teach these kids, mathematics, origami, and lots of fun-making activities. Most of the kids at Ashraya are normal from a physical point of view, but not so from the emotional point of view - I would term them para-normal! They are a bit more mature than their age, which varied between 3 to 13 years. Ashraya has a number of infant orphans as well but we were not interacting with them. This place was unlike the Helen Keller Institute at Vashi, Mumbai where was dealing with special kids with visual and hearing challenges. You need a different level of patience while interacting with these little angels.
They have a garden with swings, slides and see-saws to play with. I used to hold them in my arms and rotate fast - they enjoyed these rides and you should just see the expression on their faces. We were not supposed to take photographs, but over the years, I have taken snaps of the work done by the kids, such as in their coloring books. Last year, for Christmas, I got an idea which was quickly accepted by the other team members - we gifted them gifts which we helped them to make. Let me explain that a bit: We taught them how to make Santa Claus masks, cone caps with bells, and paper toys. Then few of them became Santa and all of them played a game where you have to sing for Santa and get your gifts! There were many sessions when we showed them animated movies - they loved Ice Age 2! They loved Winnie the Pooh so much that it took them no time to learn when I taught them how to draw and later paint, huge Winnie posters.
We have Rakum school for the blind at Indiranagar, Bangalore where I live. This is another place which I frequently visit since I have been in Bangalore. Initially, many of my visits were anonymous, and I felt good that I am able to contribute to the education of such special kids - they needed our time and understanding more than monetary contributions. As per Mr Rakum, there are many folks who contribute money, but the number of persons who contribtue their time is very less. It is a different kind of realization and an expansion of the awareness of your existence, when you are with these kids.
At Rourkela, I used to go to a place called 'Home and Hope', which was on the way to my school (Saint Paul's Rourkela). I used to observe these boys and girls, (I was of their age those days: this is around fifteen years ago) and was amazed at the patience of the caretakers in looking after mentally challenged kids. I continued interacting with these folks even after school, and during my engineering, I visited a similar school at Anushaktinagar, BARC Mumbai. I was gifted a Diwali card made by a mentally challenged 11 year old - you could find more beauty and imagination in the design than any other card you have seen and you will be perplexed when you meet the kid who created it. At 'Asha Niketan' in Koramangala, Bangalore, I met a 15 year old special boy, who asked me if I liked his drawings and would like to buy some. The bigger surprise came to me later when he shared, "I like A R Rahman's music - if you buy few of my drawings, I'll get enough money to get few more of his DVDs". I was dumbfounded to hear this and was really wondering whether he is mentally challenged or the rest of the world is - how come we ignore such talents in our day to day lives of mindless hurry.
Even after I got married, I continued my visits to Ashraya, Rakum School and the Spastics Society of Karnataka in Indiranagar, Bangalore. My significant half, Pallavi, is always with me in all such visits. It has been so many years that I have been visiting such places, and still everyday teaches me something new about life, something really novel. I have had very busy schedules in life, but I have tried not to miss these visits.
At GE India, and later at Mercedes Benz India, I organized some personal visits by volunteers who want to look beyond their problems in life and look at little angles struggling to make meaning out of their existence. We also organized a tree plantation program and 'Teach me Hindi' program for the kids. It was an emotional reconnection with their school days, for many of the volunteers. At times, we organized these events personally (not through the office) so that folks from various companies can join us - we had friends from SAP, Tesco, Yahoo India, HP India, and Infosys to name a few. For us, contributing our bit was closer to heart and meant much more than just logging hours for community service on the company portal.
Life teaches you a lot of things indirectly and it depends on our observation abilities, how much we learn from it. There is a unique humility that you develop with such events and it has a great effect on your management skills. You have a much wider outlook on life. We need to realize how fortunate we are, even in our deficiencies, and how we can still make a difference to brighten someone's smile someday. :-)
At Rourkela, I used to go to a place called 'Home and Hope', which was on the way to my school (Saint Paul's Rourkela). I used to observe these boys and girls, (I was of their age those days: this is around fifteen years ago) and was amazed at the patience of the caretakers in looking after mentally challenged kids. I continued interacting with these folks even after school, and during my engineering, I visited a similar school at Anushaktinagar, BARC Mumbai. I was gifted a Diwali card made by a mentally challenged 11 year old - you could find more beauty and imagination in the design than any other card you have seen and you will be perplexed when you meet the kid who created it. At 'Asha Niketan' in Koramangala, Bangalore, I met a 15 year old special boy, who asked me if I liked his drawings and would like to buy some. The bigger surprise came to me later when he shared, "I like A R Rahman's music - if you buy few of my drawings, I'll get enough money to get few more of his DVDs". I was dumbfounded to hear this and was really wondering whether he is mentally challenged or the rest of the world is - how come we ignore such talents in our day to day lives of mindless hurry.
Even after I got married, I continued my visits to Ashraya, Rakum School and the Spastics Society of Karnataka in Indiranagar, Bangalore. My significant half, Pallavi, is always with me in all such visits. It has been so many years that I have been visiting such places, and still everyday teaches me something new about life, something really novel. I have had very busy schedules in life, but I have tried not to miss these visits.
At GE India, and later at Mercedes Benz India, I organized some personal visits by volunteers who want to look beyond their problems in life and look at little angles struggling to make meaning out of their existence. We also organized a tree plantation program and 'Teach me Hindi' program for the kids. It was an emotional reconnection with their school days, for many of the volunteers. At times, we organized these events personally (not through the office) so that folks from various companies can join us - we had friends from SAP, Tesco, Yahoo India, HP India, and Infosys to name a few. For us, contributing our bit was closer to heart and meant much more than just logging hours for community service on the company portal.
Life teaches you a lot of things indirectly and it depends on our observation abilities, how much we learn from it. There is a unique humility that you develop with such events and it has a great effect on your management skills. You have a much wider outlook on life. We need to realize how fortunate we are, even in our deficiencies, and how we can still make a difference to brighten someone's smile someday. :-)
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