A Visit to Cheshire Home for Physically Challenged

A quiet environment, where you can hear the chirping bird, trees and lots of them blocking the sun rays touching the ground, not many people around to be seen, and the time, it seems to have stopped for the moment. Does it feel like Mumbai? Yes indeed, its Cheshire Home for the physically disabled.

What happens when our thumb gets injured, only then do we understand the importance of it. Each and everything we do, simple things like opening a door, lifting a cup of tea involves our thumb. Now imagine loosing a total limb, now that is even more difficult to cope with. Now think of loosing total functionality of parts of your body, that is traumatic to cope with.

 "It is a waste of time to be angry about my disability. One has to get on with life and I haven't done badly. People won't have time for you if you are always angry or complaining." says Stephan Hawkings.

Think about it, when was the last time you were angry or complained about your life. Don't we have something to learn from people who have lost a lot and behave as if they have nothing in life to lose?

To make them smile, is all we wanted to do and that is what we did. Some of them were really excited on winning the jaldi five and full housie prizes. As the number count went on, there were many calling out numbers. We helped them play the game and finally there were many winners. We photographed each and every winner as soon as he won. And the gifts, I felt our presence on the day made their day more than the gifts.

The handicraft exhibition there was a treat to see. Many of them were great craftsmen. We bought many of the handicrafts made by them. What strikes me is how can such handicapped people make such amazing handicrafts! When god shuts down something, he opens up something else they say. In their case the amazing world of art has opened up.The paintings over the greeting cards they make was really artistic, like an artist would do it.

The times we had with them will always make us remember the quote "Tough Times Never Last,But Tough People Do!" They have learned to live with their disability and don't consider them as disable but just physically challenged. Let us learn from them and get inspiration during our tougher times.

Touching.. not quiet

I wanted to buy the iPad (the new one). The price would have punched a big hole in my pocket. I realized that later, it was not adding something new to my life. The features of the iPad were all taken over by its Android successors. The Android pads offered features that the iPad did not. But the display and look and feel of an Apple iPad is something that makes us want to buy the iPad.

Then came the Samsung phone, pad and padfone(which was not a phone not a pad). The Samsung S2 created history with top of the line sales. Samsung also released many phone which were targeted on the college going students. Now a days if we see, almost everyone has a Samsung smart phone with the touch pad. Mine is a HTC, which comes before the era of Samsung, which has revolutionized the smart phone and pad segment of the market. Android OS which gives lot of free apps to download from the Android market has been a catalyst to this boom.

Samsung also made good advt. to attract the younger college goers with something unique. Well done!! Now each and every person has a glass pane that he will peer into almost more than 50 times a day. I wanted to do a count of how many times I checked my phone a day. I was really surprised to find out that I used my phone far more than I thought before. Soon it was phone everywhere, bed, sofa, toilet, with laptop.

Facebook has made a bigger influence to today's networking. More so the android app for facebook. Checking facebook on the go, twitter on the go, using gtalk on the go, gmail on the go, cricket scores on the go, Whatsapp on the go, linkedin on the go, naukri.com on the go, bookmyshow on the go, zomato.com on the go and list just refrains to die. These smart apps have made our life so easy but has made us lazy. Yes indeed, it has made us stick to a 4 inch/6 inch or 10 inch flat pane of glass for more than 5 hours a day. Actually more than 5 hours. 

The touch effect of a mobile feels so great. It is addictive. It kind of leaves us with no time for other chores in our everyday life. Our hobbies are orphaned. There were lot of other things we used to do before; this touch phenomenon, abducts all those things, never to give us a feel of it again. Life without our touch device sounds boring. We cannot live without them. We want to sleep with it, wake up with it, go for a walk with it; have we tought about sitting on it? Sleep cycle goes for a toss. We feel almost out of energy every day when we wake up in the morning.

I remember a famous quote of MK Gandhi -- "“Remember that all through history, there have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they seem invincible. But in the end, they always fall. Always.”  Here I refer to the touch device as the sleep killer, a hobby killer. The determination of people is so much that we can do anything, to come over things. The touch device is addictive, yes but it is not more than the determination of humans. Eventually it will fall or something else will take over. Its here to stay for some time, but sooner or later we have the capacity to control it and not the other way round. When it dawns, the next day we will wake up and feel stronger and fresher. 

School Cricket

Mumbai, what better place to learn and play cricket. It was not the first time I played cricket, but the land of Sachin Tendulkar made it special to play it in the streets of Mumbai. The years were 1996-2000, I was totally new to underarm cricket. Born and brought up in south India where we played over arm throw cricket.

Throwing the ball not bowling it. Simple terms it is chucking. I was new to both over arm and under arm cricket. The streets were full of cricketers some very good , some beginners like me. It was difficult for me to adjust to playing this kind of demanding cricket. All I needed was practice, and practice is what I got. Moved along the reins and finally could become captain of some team.

Improved my underarm bowling, though my overarm blowing was a shame. I never got the line correct with over arm cricket. So I mastered my slow leg spinners and offies which turned appreciably. Got a lot of wickets using my offies, than my leg spinners. It was totally awesome feeling just making a mark. My batting was overshadowed by my bowling. It was okay, not very consistent. I used to come to party once in a while and blow the opponent away.

Keeping all aside, I kept chipping in with some great reflex catches. It was more anticipation and hand eye coordination that made me a better fielder. I used to dive on those thar roads and injure myself almost everyday. My mom was really unhappy by the way I used to come up with some new starch or cut every now and then.

School cricket, I played was a totally different batch of individuals. Even though a lot of people were from south India and settled here in Mumbai, they were more of mumbaikars than south Indians. I used to play with my own bunch of people at school, guys who were average at their grades. There was this scholars gang were everyone had good grades and they used to play separately. I always dreamed to play with those scholars and mingle with them and being in their conversation would increase my grades too.

One fine day, I did ask them if I could play with them. They did like me and said yes. I thought it was a break threw. I got into a better bunch of individuals and so I thought. I had to leave my old gang to join them. Ofcourse my old gang guys did not like this move.

One fine day, I was running a single and accidentally ball watching banged into one of the fielders. The guy I hit fell and his head banged on ground. A sharp pebble caused a small cut. It resulted in blood , which made the scene ugly. I was new to their gang. Though they did not abuse me or something, but finally sent a guy who told me exactly where I stand. Thats it I was out of the group. I could not longer play cricket with them.

My old gang were willing to take me again. Yes, its all in being friends. I realized my mistake of being caught in greed for higher grades. That day I started to realize, I am not very great at my grades, I am not a scholar. My brain is not like those super kids, its an average brain. I tried to study harder and try to outscore these scholars. I was successful in most of attempts. Just that my language subjects used to give me a harder time and keep me behind.