She is special, she will always be

Born healthy but otherwise, this little girl was tagged ‘abnormal’ by the conservative society. 

But it is said that Mothers are God’s way of inhabiting the human world. 

She fought every glare, every savage attempt of hostility aimed at her demure ‘special’ daughter who bore the brunt of being a Down’s Syndrome. 

With a hole in her heart that won’t ever heal, her family has wrapped her in arms of love and tears of warmth; for all they know not is when it will be her last. 

But before she goes, she will dance to a tune and sing a melody that will resound in hearts for the remainder of a lifetime.

In pursuit of happiness

He often wonders why other children laugh at him as he walks down the street. 

One diwali, the lights and sounds of firecrackers sparked off a string of reactions in him and for the first time in 18 years violence gave way. 

He badgered his mother, but she believes that it didn't hurt that bad – a mother’s divine manifestation that passes off unexplained. 

He punishes himself to hunger when he realizes his unruly behaviour and prays to meet daddy who is away in another country, earning for his family. 

He dreams of going there someday, to earn like daddy and meet Abu in the grave – his cousin who passed away in war.

Walking on love

She was born crippled because the doctor was on a vacation and the cesarean had to wait; crutches grew to become her only friends.

Her younger brother emulated her faulty walking style and eventually conditioned his mind and body to behave in that manner. 

Her sister is angry and filled with vengeance because her ‘special’ siblings took away all the love and attention that were rightfully hers. 

She has been kept away from her siblings because the doctor believes her to have had an adverse effect on both of them. 

In the helpless despise of her mother, she drags her feet along the abandoned lanes of loneliness in the hope of some acceptance.

Lost in the ashes

He is proud because he can travel all alone, showing the bus conductor a slip with the names of the bus stops he needs to get down at. 

He deals with glaring eyes and peculiar reactions with nothing but an innocent smile. 

He has suffered a heart attack but still puts up a brave front in the face of reality – his brain damage that has deterred him from leading a life that he could have had otherwise. 

This 6 feet tall boy-man will hug you like a kindergarten baby – he cries and complains like one too. 

But in a family filled with highly educated and accomplished ‘normal’ people, will this bespectacled, balding 50 year old special boy ever prove his worth?

Unfolding destiny

At the time of child birth, I couldn't find her twin sister’s head and so mistakenly lifted her upside down; water gushing to her head. 

Stillborn, she was revived but paid a price all her life for she was never normal again. 

When her father died, she bid his coffin goodbye – a loving goodbye to an alcoholic who beat her up day in and day out. 

Her sister missed 2 years of school to raise her twin – taught her to walk, talk, eat and loved her till the world’s end. 

She has finally lost her fight against a fatal disease but her songs and laughter echo in her soft-toyed room and in my guilt that will always hold me.

The sound of music

On a gloomy day as they sit seeing the pitter patter of the rain, they wish they could reverse their son’s 20 odd years. 

His parents have dodged all odds to raise their speechless, differently abled son who can only converse in gestures and faint sounds. 

Mockery has always haunted him, yet he braves it all to prove that happiness transcends words and language. 

His story is that of a struggle which is internal to his being and his family’s expectations of their first son. 

They are still seeing the pitter patter of the rain and wishing to reverse their son’s 20 odd years; and then they see him dancing in the same wet rain, miming a happy song in his eyes.

A lost fable

He was their most cherished ‘special’ gift after their first child passed away; he lived a fable until the dreadful day when daddy’s hand slipped from his and went straight to heaven, taking mummy along. 

At 2 in the morning his window sill was wet with tears as he said ‘daddy will come now’. 

But there’s no one to tell him that daddy won’t come. 

He stood looking at the hospital screaming ‘mummy mummy’ till his sister pulled him away saying ‘she’s not there anymore’. 

Are coffins really buried this deep?

That place called Peace

The forceps-bearer crushed my son’s brain’s nerves when he came into this world and it paralyzed my dream of motherhood. 

We tried teaching him the ABCD and 1234 in vain, so we sent him to a place for different ones like him; but it worsened his condition. 

He understands his traumas and blames me for sending him away, away from the warmth of a mother’s bosom. 

He wants to marry and have a family like his siblings do, but time won’t heal the face of reality – the brain damage he suffered 27 years ago. 

I can hear his words that lay buried deep down in a frustrated heart that has only suffered all along and all I can do is pray for his life to be shorter than mine so that I can see his peace before I see mine.

The duty of imagination

My mother protects me from everything that is the world, because I became what I am due to her pre-delivery fever. 

But I have friends whom I play with and talk to, they really exist – somewhere in my head and they even tell me about their families. 

Tutors came home to teach me after I left school, but I didn’t understand them; my fingers are stiff and I cannot do anything on my own now. 

I have a ‘parivaar’ – my husband is a doctor and I have 2 pretty daughters who are just like me – they really are there, in my head. 

My dreams are beyond this lifetime, they are more than what you can imagine – they are etched in my head, in my dreamland.

Betrayed Humanity

He didn't give his 10th grade exams because a little before that a group of rogue boys assaulted him in ways that will always be a mystery. 

He succumbed to the mental trauma and the doctors spelled him as ‘a case of severe retardation’. 

His father died of the shock and left his mother to fend for herself and their special son. 

He echoes the names of his assaulters, undergoes shock treatments and has lost the will to live. 

He is not God’s gift like most other special ones, but a blemished residue of profanely betrayed humanity.

Count your blessings

I am my father’s princess and my mother’s angel, one of the very few special ones who has gotten her due in society. 

But I have suffered for way too long for I am a stubborn kind. 

I will scratch my skin till it scrapes, pull at my earlobes till they tear open, bleed and hurt myself in ways unimaginable only so that I can get all your attention. 

And once I have it, you will be mesmerized by me – ‘cute’ ‘doll’ ‘cuddly’- you will call me all this and more. 

My smile reflects the vibrancy of a rainbow and with each passing day the palette only grows to be more colourful – I am the one in your blessings, I am special!

Blood brothers

I can’t style my hair the way he does nor ride the bike like him neither can I get a kiss from my dad like he does. 

But mom loves my dishevelled hair, abrasive walk and toothless smile because we both are hers alike. 

He gets angry and throws things at me and says words like ‘mad’ ‘mental’ ‘curse’, none of which I understand. 

Mom cries a lot, but don’t worry mom, one day when he scratches me he will also get some Dettol to dab my wound like I kiss his forehead when he is deep asleep. 

I love my small brother in ways that are different than how other boys love their small brothers; it is love nevertheless.

Words are all I want

She sings her 6 month old niece a silent lullaby, snapping her fingers waiting for the words to come out; but they won’t. 

They never did in all these years. 

Her family thinks she can do nothing and she has come to believe this because although she sits doing nothing, deep in her head she understands what they say. 

But now she goes to school and gets a salary and she wants to buy shoes, clothes, cars and the moon; she does – her niece knows. 

She tells this to her infant companion in the hope that one day words might just spurt out of her mouth by mistake, until then the finger snapping lullaby continues.

Tin Soldier

Physically crippled and mentally just a little weak – that’s how his parents describe him every time they go looking for a job for him. 

But these words are enough to elicit a response filled with flak and rejection for the boy on crutches. 

He now goes to a school, where he has been told that he is employed and this little lie has made the world of a difference to him. 

He now earns and has learned to believe in himself and his dreams. 

He also believes in the miracle that one day he will let go off the crutches and run past all those who held him back, held back the tin soldier.

Pain but no agony

I stumbled into a proposal of treachery and lies and they got me married to the special man, as you call him. 

My heart winced at the debauchery, but when I saw him I knew he had to be taken care of. 

Life partner, romance, marriage – all these are alien to him; he is no more than a small boy in the mind. 

So here I am, mothering my special husband in ways that the world will never know, whilst my rightful role of a wife takes a backseat. 

He isn't my prince charming on a white horse who will fill my world with the sun, moon and the stars; but I continue to serve him as God's blessing, for I believe he is my frog prince.

Eluding sorrow with pangs of joy

He saw his cousins tying up his mother’s body before they placed her on the pyre and blames them for it even today - he is still angry with them. 

But he eludes this melancholy with fun and mischief, he finds solace in them. 

He suffers from kleptomania - an irresistible impulse to steal in the absence of any economic motive; he stealthily picks up particular things he is fond of - soaps, cassettes, money and the likes. 

From deflating car tyres to incomprehensible idiosyncratic gestures, this special boy is chasing every ray of light that can bring him happiness. 

His mother’s memory holds him up there, between the rays, till he can hold them in his palms.

Buried graves

He touches his forehead to mine for that’s his way of expressing love. 

He laughs a lot, dances like no one’s watching and tunelessly sings the perfect lyrics. 

But dad has taken him away from us to another city for reasons best known to him. 

Dad left him back with us, but he doesn't talk anymore, nor does he smile; he only stammers broken sentences. 

His scars say a lot but he is silent – what dad and the other city did to my younger brother will always be buried in a grave that we will never be able to find.

Doe a Deer..

‘Doe a deer, a female deer..’ that harmonious tune takes me back to the girl, that toothless fairy. 

She was the 7^th of 10 siblings, specially gifted in every way other than normalcy. 

Having lost both her parents, she lived with only a maid to look out for her in a house that her siblings quarreled for and ignored their little sister’s very existence. 

After 46 years of showing the world that being special was her way, she sleeps in her coffin waiting for her mother to come back from church and hug her. 

That smile will never fade, that song will never die out, the love will always live on; ‘Doe a deer..’

Who switched off the lights?

My boy is normal and he will be treated that way – I lamented. 

His friends and teachers at school didn’t hear my words and his brain didn’t follow theirs. 

I kept him at home, protected from those noxious eyes and drowned myself in work as he sat unattended and ignored. 

He knew he was nobody’s apple of the eye; he hurt himself repeatedly, but who was there to see? 

Finally he gauged out his eyes, inflicting irrevocable guilt on me because now my boy is mentally challenged and blind.

5 Point Someone

Every story we hear stirs us with shock or melancholy. 

These are stories that need to be told and stories that need to be heard. They spell bane and despair; they reek of injustice and rejection; a foul play of betrayal. These are words that haven’t seen the light of day and voices that have been covert for way too long. But amidst it all is a mesh of love, hope and belief.

With each story you read, you will witness a tactile connection to the protagonist, who in this case, happens to have been our student at some point. “5 Point Someone” is Advitya’s attempt to quill an affable connection between those who are different and those who aren't.

Each narration is 5 lines long or 5 lines short, either ways.