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| New Year Eve with Special Children | | |
By Balraj Puri
I do not greet people of the state or of India through the media on occasions of greet days because I do not consider myself a VIP. I have also given up the practice of sending greeting cards on such occasions. Nor did I go to a club or join friends to celebrate New Year Eve. But preferred to celebrated, with special children, organized by Global Gandhi Family, Sehyog India and Help India, along with many other citizens of the town. The special children included blind, deaf, dumb and lame. Why they are special? They used to be called disabled. Now they are called differently abled. The children on New Year eve displayed their special talent in music and songs. One of them Rahul was awarded of Rs one lakh for being the best singer at the Katra festival.
I enjoy more pleasure in celebrating special occasions with so called handicapped and disabled people than with the elite. On last occasion I did so in the company of what were called street children in a school being run by celebrated social worker. Dr Ved Ghai at Rajiv Nagar in Jammu. Some of its children gave up their traditional work and outshined many students of government and public schools. Mahatma Gandhi often used to serve the handicapped people on special days.
Those whose some physical faculty due to some or the other reason is unable to express to their talent, if given an opportunity, get it expressed through other faculities which get sharpened. This fact was demonstrated in a recent film of Amir Khan, Tare Zamin Par in which talent of a child, neglected and rejected by everybody, was discovered by one of his teachers who became a great artist.
History is replete with many talented personalities whose one or the other faculty did not work became outstanding artists, musicians, writers and scientists etc. Bhagat Surdas, a blind, was an outstanding Hindi poet of medieval India. Stephen Hawking is totally disabled but his brain is exceptional which made him one of the greatest scientists of today.
Instances can be multiplied. The relevant lesson for us is not to dismiss differently abled persons but to provide them opportunities to display their talent and contribute to enrichment of society. What is needed is to create awareness among persons who consider themselves fully able to treat differently abled children with respect and give them attention and love if possible financial help to those institutions which have provided them shelter, not out of pity or charity but as a social obligation.
The government certainly owes a lot to them, in providing training and teaching through, for instance, hearing aid and Braille system. Services of some specialist should be recruited to provide them with these services and discover their latent talent. Some seats in government services should also be reserved for them. Elsewhere in the country such students have competed for IAS and other specialized jobs, often with success.
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