It is strange how life unfolds its story like any best seller novel, and like a gripping crime thriller you never know what happens in the page overleaf. You continue to live each moment awaiting the unexpected. Yet at the same time you get your opportunity to flip back a few pages to look back what had happened earlier, on most occasions in an attempt to understand what exactly had happened with a mindset of ‘Did I miss anything?’ and trying to guess why.
Flipping back a few pages of my life will bring us all in a small rented accommodation in Chittaranjan Park, New Delhi to a happy and most importantly a very normal family of the 21st century. A working couple and their small one year old kid with a 24 hour maid made up the family. Happiness and anxiety had a different meaning then. Pretty much like any other normal family of the same condition. Did the child sleep well in the after noon? Did he eat his lunch properly? Were there any problems with any other thing? Day in and day out life was pretty much fixed into a routine, which was nothing extra ordinary, but definitely normal.
Sometimes you really do not know what exactly you want from life. And at each step and each situation you continuously make amendments to your goals to keep peace with yourself. And back then we had plans like any other “normal” parents to remain ambitious about our son; ironically enough which was all to change pretty soon.
Things started to change from being normal to something unknown and indescribable in an around the time when Debarghya was about 18 months old. And definitely like any other normal parents we did not have the clue how to react and what exactly to do. And hence we changed jobs and headed home.
It was actually in Kolkata that we first came across the term Autism and the implications of it. By that time Debarghya had started to miss the first few milestones related to social behavior. Until that point he had been either punctual, or on some occasions before time with respect to the major milestones of a child; like sitting up, standing up and walking, etc. And on a routine visit to our regular pediatrician for a vaccination, we heard the term Autism for the first time. And after a few quick dip into the information network in the internet, it struck us like lightening. A vast span of numbness followed. And we kept on asking ourselves “why us?” for days together without getting the answer at all. And after sometime we stopped looking for the answer to this specific question as we gradually got engrossed in finding the answers to a few more important questions of life.
What followed for the next few months from there on and beyond has been a constant struggle to maintain a semblance of sanity in our lives. We panicked, yet we became stronger. We were afraid, yet brave enough to open up new avenues. Our search started and with that started the regular rejection from many a door that we knocked. Many a day went by without knowing for certain about the tomorrow. But that is life, isn’t it? Who knows what is going to happen tomorrow?
But gradually what all thought as a weakness, Debarghya became our strength to live our life all over once more. In a different way, with a different flavour. Each step became a little more measured, yet there was no dearth of any enjoyment in life. May be I would talk in details about many a step later in this page, on some other day!
The last one year has been especially difficult for all of us. I still do not believe that I had managed to stay apart from him for so long. And I cannot gauge the level of courage and optimism that Sushree had to constantly exhibit to slog along alone in this cruel world. And for Debarghya, we are actually lucky enough, as he is even unable to complain about his situation and ask for what he wants. He remains like the eternal child of the “Selfish Giant”.
We only want our eternal child to be happy! God bless!
(2nd April was the World Autism Awareness Day. And this came out from my mind into this page on that occasion only!
I would keep on talking about Debarghya in this page; hence I believe this is only the first of many more thoughts to follow in this blog about him.)
Flipping back a few pages of my life will bring us all in a small rented accommodation in Chittaranjan Park, New Delhi to a happy and most importantly a very normal family of the 21st century. A working couple and their small one year old kid with a 24 hour maid made up the family. Happiness and anxiety had a different meaning then. Pretty much like any other normal family of the same condition. Did the child sleep well in the after noon? Did he eat his lunch properly? Were there any problems with any other thing? Day in and day out life was pretty much fixed into a routine, which was nothing extra ordinary, but definitely normal.
Sometimes you really do not know what exactly you want from life. And at each step and each situation you continuously make amendments to your goals to keep peace with yourself. And back then we had plans like any other “normal” parents to remain ambitious about our son; ironically enough which was all to change pretty soon.
Things started to change from being normal to something unknown and indescribable in an around the time when Debarghya was about 18 months old. And definitely like any other normal parents we did not have the clue how to react and what exactly to do. And hence we changed jobs and headed home.
It was actually in Kolkata that we first came across the term Autism and the implications of it. By that time Debarghya had started to miss the first few milestones related to social behavior. Until that point he had been either punctual, or on some occasions before time with respect to the major milestones of a child; like sitting up, standing up and walking, etc. And on a routine visit to our regular pediatrician for a vaccination, we heard the term Autism for the first time. And after a few quick dip into the information network in the internet, it struck us like lightening. A vast span of numbness followed. And we kept on asking ourselves “why us?” for days together without getting the answer at all. And after sometime we stopped looking for the answer to this specific question as we gradually got engrossed in finding the answers to a few more important questions of life.
What followed for the next few months from there on and beyond has been a constant struggle to maintain a semblance of sanity in our lives. We panicked, yet we became stronger. We were afraid, yet brave enough to open up new avenues. Our search started and with that started the regular rejection from many a door that we knocked. Many a day went by without knowing for certain about the tomorrow. But that is life, isn’t it? Who knows what is going to happen tomorrow?
But gradually what all thought as a weakness, Debarghya became our strength to live our life all over once more. In a different way, with a different flavour. Each step became a little more measured, yet there was no dearth of any enjoyment in life. May be I would talk in details about many a step later in this page, on some other day!The last one year has been especially difficult for all of us. I still do not believe that I had managed to stay apart from him for so long. And I cannot gauge the level of courage and optimism that Sushree had to constantly exhibit to slog along alone in this cruel world. And for Debarghya, we are actually lucky enough, as he is even unable to complain about his situation and ask for what he wants. He remains like the eternal child of the “Selfish Giant”.
We only want our eternal child to be happy! God bless!
(2nd April was the World Autism Awareness Day. And this came out from my mind into this page on that occasion only!
I would keep on talking about Debarghya in this page; hence I believe this is only the first of many more thoughts to follow in this blog about him.)
3 comments:
There are many situations in life when we ask, "why me/us?" but now I have realised that its a futile question with no answer, the better question with a definite answer is, "Its me/us, so what now?" the moment you ask this question life smiles and comes up with a lot of options..Debarghya will continue to light up yours and Sushree's life in every moment of darkness..
Thank You sujatadi, And I agree to the "Its me/us, so what now?" philosophy, and thats the same we ahve been following till now. And truly, he is and will continue (may be longer than any 'normal' kid)to light up our lives and beyond!!
# Rxn 1: Choking
# Rxn 2: Sad
# Rxn 3: Sigh
# Rxn 4: Chado yaar!
# Rxn 5: Bingo-you emote till date!
# Rxn 6: Write something about Presidency someday
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