Samarthya

Most of the times it is my wife who is diligently taking care of my little devil and sometimes I tag along. She is the one who has taken up the mettle of enduring the mud and crap the society throws at her. She is the one who has even given me courage everyday. One such face-offs she had quiet recently was when she was out with my little one, on one of the usual evening outings. My daughter is restless, full of energy and obviously autistic. Her biggest shortcoming she is unable to learn the semantics of – what you call a normal conversation.

But there she was chirping, running, imitating (in gestured and sounds) surroundings and we had a neighbor’s family visiting them. Just to elaborate – old couple visiting their daughter and their grandchild. Usually you associate maturity with white hairs right? Not on this day.

My devil was usual energetic and to be fair they had been visiting the same spot for more than a week and we had foretold them please be cautious, my daughter is very energetic and sometimes cannot control her speed and might bump into you. The adverse effect it had was the Grand-mom using my daughter as an excuse to discipline her child.

Kiddo – Didi (elder sister in Hindi) will come and hit you, so eat this up.

On this fateful day she was busy chit chatting with the old punk not far behind gossiping on his mobile. My wife closely walking around my daughter and their grand-daughter in close proximity trying to play with my little one. As, she was walking around she started walking on the ramp of the park and my daughter came rushing in close enough for the poor kid to feel scared and she fell. She fell awkwardly. My wife the closest picked her up, but by that time damage was done. She was wailing and whimpering. Obviously concerned parent or in this case grand parents were shocked but they knew very little of what happened.

Our unfortunate story; Their kid can talk and make stories and my daughter cannot. This is why we are always super alert and always around my daughter just in case and to prevent any mishaps. It is another story where we see other kids hitting my daughter and she not even protesting just to be part of that group and we silently crying to see her seek the approval of the heartless and selfish at times bunch.

Coming back to the story, so the Grandpa from Rajasthan Jhunjhunu (He himself told) wakes up and starts yelling and throwing a fit. He (more than 65 for sure) hold my daughter hand (less than 6) in a fit of anger. Tightly, he shrugs her, berates her, shouts at her.

Tu pagal hai? (Are you mad)

My wife who is standing close by tries to logic with him and tell what actually happened, but he is drowned in his hatred and keeps repeating the same message and the tone.

Then begins the onslaught on insensitivity.

You need to keep people like them in jail!

He took many names and kept saying things my fingers cannot even type and my brave wife kept her calm (even though there was a storm raging inside her) and tried her best.

She sobbed, but held on.

She called me after good half an hour to tell me what happened. I was just speechless feeling devastated and yet franatically angry within. She just revealed the whole scene as it happened, and something kept dying with each word within me. She sobbed a little, but the mother in her kept her together.

My daughter was back to her usual self chirping, running and oblivious to the hatred this old man had poured out on her. Well she is autistic not naughty and only we know it not the world.