Break your Mind set Before it breaks you ! !

Preethi Srinivasan, disliked the look of pity and sympathy in everyone’s eyes and did not want to be looked upon as a handicapped person. Of recent, Preethi Srinivasan, the founder CEO of Soulfree organization has posed me a challenge, a 20 – 20 – 20 Challenge.. .It is simple. Stay erect in a chair for twenty minutes and twenty seconds without disturbing or moving your lower part of the body. Try to take up the challenge and see, who is struggling in life more. And it took me 20 times 20 of 20 days to take up the challenge…  I learnt not to sympathize with the differently abled people but to empathize them . Kavingar Kannadhaasan, in his golden lines of poem, had mentioned, “Unakkum keeze ullavar Kodi vaazhnthu paarada Manithaa…” there are lot more of people who are suffering more than you are and hence stay blessed and cherish the blessings. (Please don’t misinterpret, when what I actually meant is, people say they “suffer” and theirs is the worst ever “suffering”, but in reality, there are people who can oversee and overcome what others stamp as “Suffering”)

Disability – Challenged – or whatever… I Happened to attend a function, Cavinkare Ability Awards 2015, where the ABLE persons were awarded for their normalcy and being normal and competing with all others. It was so good to see very many people being nominated. And the jury members were in a perplexed condition to assess who were the best in their struggles of being normal.
The function was organized jointly by C.K.Ranganathan - CMD, CavinKare Pvt Ltd, Jayshree Raveendran - Founder , Ability Foundations and a few other s partnering the noble cause. The event had eminent and famous personalities, like Dr.A.R.Rehman, Mr.Chiyaan Vikram, Ms. Bombay Jeyashri, Dr.Maria Zeena Jhonsan, Ms. Revathi, Mr. Terry Thomas.. and many more. The founder chair of ability foundations was also there to grace the event. Media partners, award presenting partners, witnessed the event which was as usual staged in a grand manner.

The special achievement award went to Mr. Ramakrishnan of Amar seva Sangh, a 80 year young man, who never dared to dream and made it into reality. When he had a dream of serving the nation by joining the navy, he was forcefully been put into a wheel chair where he couldnot sense anything below his shoulders. But, he never gave up. He started fighting against all odds, and have started Amar Seva Sangh – an institute/ Organization to support lots and lots of people and there by serving the nation! Service to Humankind is a service to the nation!

Janarthanam .K who has got creativity at its highest levels, suffered an electrocution during his early childhood! He is a mouth painter and a graphic designer by professional passion, made extraordinary attempt to break stereotypes that come along with the physical disability through accidents! He made a fruitful struggle and now, is a director of short films. He gleamed with joy and said, “I have a big dream. I want to become a big noted movie director”. All I could do is, respect his dreams which are going to become definitely true in near future.

When I find it tough to control my voluntary actions of moving about like a rag doll, in a chair or jumping here and there, and getting named as a girl of contagious energy, I was astounded to see Siddharth Taneja – who was down with cerebral palsy,

Sorry did I mean” Down”, ?! Definitely no he is UP and Moving HIGH ! In his words, “Who does not have difficulties in life? Just because I cannot use my hands I am not abnormal. I just learnt to write and work with my legs”  When few studies showed that adolescents with cerebral palsy had a lower QoL with their able bodied peers, Siddharth, proved to have on par or even a far better QoL (quality of Life) than his able bodied peers. Working for “make my trip.com”, Siddharth refused to take up special privileges that the company had offered him on the fact that he is fighting with a disorder!

Praveen Vyas, curbed to bed after a road accident, never allowed this set back to hinder his success in life. He has started a newspaper Phalodi Jayate, in his native Jodhpur which had no printing press. Today, his creation sells 1,500 copies daily. He works just by lying in his bed. He acts as a constant source of motivation to all his colleagues/sub – ordinates/employees.

She has proved that a strong determination and will is far more important than a strong body. She – the lady of alacrity and clear vision – Savitha Singh – bagged the Eminence Award that night, for supporting girl child, female empowerments, etc. She suffered an early polio attack and was kind of abandoned by the society but strived hard to set up, organize and help girls / ladies, transcending her disability!

The evening/night, was indeed an eye opener to me and almost to many others, who witnessed fashion shows by the differently abled people! Inspiring talks by Jaishree Ravindran, Revathi, added more emotions and knowledge to the evening!

Everyone has hardships they encounter in their lives, but when someone with a disability is able to overcome all of the additional faucets, a disability brings to not only survive, but to find mega success, that is an amazing thing to behold. It takes a lot of strength and a complete no-fear attitude to go as far as these highly successful people with disabilities have.

 After the full course eye – opening curtain raiser kind of sessions, questions surrounded me, literally, about the need of the hour! What on earth makes us to think that ‘we face too much of struggles, we are not comfortable,’ or what makes us wait for leading a “sophisticated” life with iOS and iP-6, and all that ? What makes us to fight with our loved ones over the viber / tang / whatsapp interfaces, about their “Privacy” settings, “Last seen” and “out of range” and all that, when there are people outside, who needs our respect and empathy; when there are people who strive hard despite the split second tragedy; when there are people who needs your support to achieve a basic QoL; when there are people who move towards success rather than succumbing to all the mishaps they faced in life – medically ! !

 Don’t you think, it is high time to change our mind sets, accept people as they are, take up the situations as they come ? Let us try to be interdependent, sharing and caring, helping each other out, ensuring the glee and bliss transcending every where, to make our Mother India or even the Planet earth, a happier place to live ? ?