My School Days In Chandigarh.....

When we moved to Chandigarh from Dharamshala , I was very much excited  to go to new school and make new friends , but when we approached some of the schools here, we had to face the same problem as earlier, that is, the principals refused to give me admission as I was a ‘special child’ and as they didn’t have ‘special teachers’ (we know that these were just lame excuses and that they were just shirking  away from taking responsibility).But then somebody told us about  Mr. Harold Carver, principal of St Stephens School. He was the man who helped me a lot during my years in the school. He was a ray of hope in darkness .He always stood for me whenever I needed him the most, He didn’t hesitate for a moment to give me admission and he was very happy to have me in his school.

I was also really excited when I got admission in this school by the thought of meeting new people, making new friends and having new books. My uniform changed from shots to pants as I was now a ‘big boy’J.   Here I met one of my best friend Guarav Kumar who helped me a lot during my time in the school. He  always stood by my side and helped me with my classwork and other such things. Yet there were certain issues that lingered……for example, due to my Dyslexia, I was slow in writing. As a result of which I was slow in copying down the notes from the blackboard and had to wait for the class to end to ask for a notebook for copying down rest of the notes .However, here was a pitfall too……most of the children were not willing to give me their notebooks and tended to make excuses.

At last, when we approached Carver sir with this problem, he suggested us that instead of writing down the notes, we should get them Xeroxed. Finally with this solution, the problem came to an end!

Besides this, I also had some sweet memories associated with this school -:   

·         I had gone to my first ever school trip to Gujral Science City, Kapurthala (Jalandhar)

·         I had participated in the school’s annual day function in a group song in which I wore traditional Indian dress (white Dhoti, white Kurta, Gandhi cap with tricolor sash) and sang Vande Mataram  J

·         I participated in my first and only school sports day in lemon- spoon race (although my lemon kept on falling at each and every step, still I completed the race) with blisters in my feet which were due to my foot aids which I used to wear inside my  shoes .I also got a consolation prize for it ….. ! Yippeee J

• I became the headline in news after my 10^th exams.
• A News channel (India News) also did a story on me :)

BACK WITH A BANG!!!

Hi there,

  Here I am BACK WITH A BANG after my final exams.  Missed me??? I know you missed me a lot J. This was my final semester of BAJM (Journalism and Mass Communication). The result is yet to come but I hope that with wishes of my loved ones and friends like you I will definitely score well. I will never forget my graduation time for the rest of my life because of some inevitable but really good reasons, such as-:

·         I got my first smartphone.

·         One of my major surgery (hopefully my last one) was done during this period.

·         I thought of sharing my experiences by writing a blog.

·         I got a chance to meet my favorite actor whom I admire the most (Chanakaya from the serial Chandragupt Maurya )

Me with Manish Wadhawa

This graduation was also an adventurous experience for me. For example- The stress and tension which I experienced during exam days had a thrilling experience of its own. When my graduation had just started, the date of my  surgery was going through the process of being fixed.

     After my first semester got over ,the date of my  surgery was finalized.

This was a major surgery and perhaps the most challenging one. ( for both of us, me and my doctor) as our main concern at that time was, whether  we will get the desired results or not. 

  After the operation I was totally bed ridden for 6 to 9 months (this was the longest period as compared to previous surgeries of confinement to bed). Immediately after this ordinal of 9 months, (almost 10) I still appeared for my exams.

 And what a great joy!!!!!  I got ‘A’ grade in all of them.

  It proved that if you work hard ignoring all the pain, tensions, worries, disparities, and all the other negative things that may or may not affect your life, the success will definitely be yours!!!!

  

And last but not the least, now you can Like Blog's Official Page : Memoirs of a Special Child on Facebook as well !

Look Beyond The Clouds !

Today I will try to find out the  'exact' meaning of the word called 'Disability' . So what do you mean by disability? What comes in your mind whenever you  hear the word disability???
                      Very often, people associate this word with persons who are physically or mentally challenged .But is it what we call disability ?  Shouldn't we think again about the 'exact' definition of this word from a different prospective ? lets try......

Oxford Dictionary define disability as:

1. A physical or mental condition that limits a person's movement .
2.  A disadvantage.  

According to me , the first definition dose not define the word clearly as it is stating the common prospective which people have about disability .The second definition looks more convincing to me. Now let us break the word' 'disabled' and  try to find out its meaning . Dis- able, according to me means  the lack of ability of doing something . Now going by this definition , each and every person in this world is disabled. For example- If one can't sing or dance , he or she is disabled in that. Similarly, if one is weak or can't play a particular sport or a musical instrument,  then he or she is disabled in that .

                Moreover, each and every person is not perfect in each and every thing  and one has to work hard in  his or her field of interest with great determination to achieve their goals .

The difference between these types of disabilities and physical or mental disabilities is that, the former type of disabilities are temporary which are not life long and  can be cured easily, whereas the latter form of disabilities are life long  and sometime permanent in nature. But I think that these disabilities can also be cured easily by great determination and will power.It  may take some time, but in the end, the success will be yours :)                                                                                                                                         According to me, people with disability can be divided into Three broad categories;

•   Physically  challenged 
• Mentally challenged
• Disabled by Thoughts.....                       

....... And I am sure that you will encounter more people with Third type of disability than the first two, as it refers to those people  who thinks that people with disabilities cannot succeed in lives and cannot compete with normal people and looks at them as if they have come from Mars. 

         So we should always help the people with disability ( especially people suffering severely from Third type of disability) so that they can overcome  it and go on to lead a normal life  :)

So to say, Disability is not limited to Physical or Mental disability, but it has much more meaning than that . And I am sure that one day,  the God has to listen to these hard workers and grant them what they want :) 

Happy Birthday to Me.....

Today I turned 20 saying goodbye to my teenage . My teenage was full of fun and adventure and discoveries  shuttling in and out of the hospitals .....discovering new hospitals  and meeting new doctors  for my surgeries.........  getting VVIP  treatments ......lying on different kinds of  O.T (operation theater) tables........ feeling like a king with doctors and paramedics at  my beck and call , pampering me ......... wow what a feeling :).We celebrated the  new year eve of 2014  in the hospital , me lying in the bed after surgery with 6 rods sticking out of my leg and wishing me a  happy new year  ;) and mom dancing to the tunes of English songs.In all these years one  thing that I have learnt is,  there are positive and negative energies and we have to grab the positive one and shoo off the negative one. I tell you it really helps   :)

The Journey Begins.....

So are you all ready to enter my world in which every day is a challenge to survive ,to prove yourself the best , to live up to the expectations  of friends , family and relatives and  last but not the least yourself .But first of all I would like to introduce  you to the disease called Cerebral Palsy (C.P). It is  a disease that is caused when a child's brain does not get enough oxygen at the time of birth, and it is seen in most of the cases  that a child suffering from cerebral palsy also gets Dyslexia ,So I got both of them :)
       
              In my first year, my mom did not realize  that I had this problem ,but when I continued to crawl and did not stand or walk , then she took me to the  doctor where I was diagnosed as having C.P and that I will always have it throughout  my life . Although I can improve it by doing rigorous exercise and stuff like that ( but one day I will prove that  doctor wrong ;) ) Anyway , I didn't give up and learnt to walk at the age of 5 or 6 .
              When I started going to school at the age of 4 , I was having difficulty  in writing alphabets and numbers (   I used to write reversed C, B ,E and words like that :)) because of dyslexia , and for this I often got  scolded ( and sometimes slapped )  by my dear mother at home ,Well I can't blame her for this , because at that time  nobody or very few people knew about Dyslexia ( special credit goes to the Bollywood movie Taare Zameen Par for spreading awareness about this problem)

                                             So my mother consulted special counsellors who are trained in handling these kind of children.There counsellors taught me how to write in right way and gave some instructions  to my mother  for the teachers at school. All this made my life  somewhat easier but this was just the beginning........
                           I was a very bright child and got good grades .I have been always a happy child and I always try my best to make everyone happy as I can't see anyone upset ,especially when they are your near and dear ones  . :)
                          After few years I had to change my my school because of some inevitable reasons .So  my parents started searching for a good school. They talked to some of them but they just refused to give me admission because  of this problem. My parents  fought with those principals  on how they could refuse  to give me admission just  because I got this problem.
                                                       One day, my parents heard about a  very good and  reputed school but somebody warned us that the principal  of this school is  very stubborn and arrogant , but my parents thought that we should give it a try.
                                                      So we got an appointment and went to meet her.She made me read a paragraph from a story book . Now, because of dyslexia , I had to break the words and read them  to understand their meaning so I was slow  in reading  and that irritated her and then she  began to find excuses to refuse us and said some unwanted and unexpected stuff that she shouldn't have said . It hurt my mother and she went out crying .I couldn't understand why she was crying .But one thing that I realised that day  was that I have to work hard to prove myself to the world .

         ( All these events happened in the beautiful city of Dharamshala in H.P)