When a daughter was born to my sister-in-law (wife's elder sister) the happiness among my in-laws knew no bounds. Not only was she the first grandchild, she was such a pretty baby. But soon storm clouds gathered.
The baby appeared not to respond to sound. Visits to doctors and specialists followed and the final verdict was heart rending. A rare nervous disorder had developed that had damaged her auditory nerves, causing her hearing to be "profoundly impaired". Apparently, there was no cure or chance of reversal.
Then followed years of effort and struggle by her parents, with most of the burden being carried by her mother who was a school teacher. Her father, an engineer, chipped in with his technical knowledge and reasoning.
They visited any number of reputed centres for such patients around the country and through use of hearing aid, speech therapy and training could enable her to hear and speak a little. She could hear only low frequency vowel sounds at high decibel levels and her speech was far from perfect. So her parents stuck to her simple nickname Mou, short for moumachi or honeybee.
Her parents took special care never to let her feel she was different. Thus, she grew up a happy child without any psychological impairment. Right from pre-school she went to not any special school but regular ones where everybody went. She learnt to lip read a bit not through formal training but intuition.
It was fascinating how she both instinctively knew she was different but accepted it matter-of-factly. She began to draw like any other child but what she produced was distinctive. For example, she would draw pictures of little girls who would have two little hearing aids sticking out of their ears (like the ones she wore), making them look like cute extra-terrestrials.
When she was barely five, Mou passed a great test. She went to the market with her grandfather and the two got separated. Her grandfather frantically looked for her and after a time rushed back home to contact the police. But Mou was there already. Unable to find him, she had on her own walked back home along the route she had gone, carrying the little bag of fish!
It was a great day for Mou's parents when she cleared the Class X exams like any other youngster without any concession for the handicapped. As she had a flair for art, she sought and secured admission to the Government College of Art and Craft in Kolkata, a premier art college in the state. The family celebrated when she passed out with flying colours.
Soon the walls of Mou's house filled up with her work and she acquired many of the preferences that artists have. She would never part with any of her works and the only work of hers we have is copies of a couple of lithographs she allowed to be distributed. My favourite is a self portrait of hers as a little girl, looking both pensive and curious.
Mou was now a grown-up girl, remarkably beautiful and quite oblivious to her deficiency. Sometimes those around her would alert her to the static that came from her hearing aid as it was not plugged in properly. She would then casually set it right, oblivious to the change.
Soon Mou began to tire of a regular artist's work and signed up to become an animation artist working on the computer and got a job in Mumbai to work as an artist on three-D animation films for Hollywood. It was a big decision for her parents - letting a very good-looking young girl with such a handicap live in a new city. But they let her go. She shared a flat with other girls and did fine. It is a tribute to the city that in the nearly 10 years that she has lived and worked there, travelling by auto-rickshaw or train, no harm has come to her.
Mou's parents were determined not to arrange a marriage with a boy who was similarly different. She would marry whoever she liked. Then she met Ganesh, a colleague whose family hailed from Mangaluru. Thus, it is that the whole of last week the family and friends in Kolkata have been celebrating, hosting one feast after another for Ganesh, his parents and a few relatives who had come over for an elaborate ashirwad, with the wedding scheduled in Mumbai in a couple of months. These few days the women in the family have cried a river of joy.
Mou and Ganesh though have one problem. Ganesh has lately started acquiring a little paunch and Mou will have none of it. So she tries to control his eating but he loves to eat. We have tried to tell her that the kindly spirits that have looked after her all these years may have willed it so. Ganesh is the auspicious god and has a nice big paunch!
subirkroy@gmail.com
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