Pg 1, Tamilnadu Pg 2 Pg 3 Pg 4, Nadi Leaves Pg 5, Temples Kids_School Pg 6, Auro & Ramana Pg 7, Hosts/Final Day Pg 8, Photo Album
I Visit My School For Disabled Children In Chidambaram
One of the good deeds required of me to balance my past mistakes was to buy clothes for school children and buy one meal for them. These children had to be disabled, be at least 60 in number, and attend a school for disabled children. School children in India all wear uniforms. It would take me some effort to find such a school in Wisconsin, let alone out in the tropical rice paddies of a very foreign country. At least, at first blush, one might think that. But, my lesson plan was very detailed and had not overlooked this matter. Before Karupaya left us the prior evening, his head popped up from his reveries at one point, and he reported, "My boss at the University. He comes from a long established, wealthy family here. I think they endowed a school for disabled children, right here in Chidambaram, some time ago. Let me check with him." So while we were busy visiting temples, in the background, the school was contacted, a textile source was engaged, tailors were arranged for, and my bad karma was on the ropes!
Entrance to the Children's School
The prior evening as we were all parting, Karupaya's boss had arrived for a short introductory meeting at the hotel. When Ganapati arrived, I was met with a light spirit, smiling generously from his very core, seeming to fill up the whole lobby with his light. Of no surprise, given the clear devotion to spirit he embodied, he assured me of everyone's gratitude for the gift I was proposing, and commented that an even more valuable gift would be my time spent with the children and staff. And thus, we arrived this morning at the school as it began its daily routines. School? Way back among dusty streets, findable only thru following Ganapati and his motorcycle, was a two story, maybe 8-10 room house. I walked the few feet from car, across the red dust that all the bricks are made of here in almost all the structures, and stepped into 3-4 hours of pure delight. Children gawked, proudly displayed their abilities to speak out loud, to share a memorized poem, draw a figure, spread paste on paper that would be an envelope, put threaded needles thru holes in a card that would end up a beautiful colored peacock, even share a complex dance to a song the profoundly deaf children certainly could not hear in the sense that I do. The teachers were warriors in their own right, dedicated so lightly yet so unreservedly to the well being of their charges. They too were proud of their lesson plans, the book of kinds of artwork their charges could learn thru, the equipment that made speaking a possibility for the deaf, and the full system they had developed to lead a child from toilet training, to walking, to speaking, to finally creating items the rest of the world considered of value.
Younger children telling me stories. Older children pasting cut paper into envelopes. Children stamping the school name on the new envelopes.
Profound hearing loss class. Older Children with teacher. Deaf children speaking from cue cards on table. Next they spoke the names of the rubber animals I left with them.
School director, who is also contracted by the Indian Government to inventory every disabled child in all the surrounding counties. The children will be mainstreamed soon, and a volunteer must be found to follow them all the way through school. Much to be done, with little money.
The children did not respond to touch as I find most children do. They are a problem for their families, and often ignored. So not surprised. A final group photo including the older boys/men who work in the envelope, and greeting card, factory.
The card they gave me as I left.
These cards are hole punched with a template full of needles. Then those facile enuf sew the colored thread through the holes producing these unbelievably beautiful cards. They gave this one to me as I left. Disabled, but clearly able to communicate.
There were 91 children in this school, and a ceremony was held where my gift was accepted and their joy and gratitude, less for sure for my money, than my smile and my heart, was poured out upon me. To see what can be done with so little, please note the clothes, custom tailored, and food, cost less than $5.80 for each child. As I left I was given a moment to touch each student and each staff member...a shake of a hand, a bow of Namaste, eye to eye communion, smiles, mutual respect, and then I was gone. How could I not be attached to this unbelievable miracle, and my role in it?! I have not been successful with detachment here. Still today my heart glows at the memory of my intimate moments with this rare collection of humans, a moment located in a place almost no one else will ever know. What wonders!
But my business with the children was done. Karupaya would stand in my stead and in a few days with the tailoring done, he will present the finished clothes to the certainly gleeful children. Thank you Karupaya, for so much. We had eaten at the school, a fork kindly provided for the American, and were now on the road to Pondicherry, and Aurobindo's Ashram.
