Autism awareness... Doing my bit :)

It's April again and it's the autism awareness month again. I am dealing with autism since last two years. And I have learnt a lot!! I am still learning though.

The reason I am writing this note is because like every other mother of an autistic child, even I feel how little people know about autism. "Autism is a serious developmental disorder that impairs the ability to communicate and interact." This is how google defines it. But frankly, it's much more than just "not being able to communicate". Lot of people misinterpret autism as mental retardation. But these two disabilities are quiet different from each other. I won't get into the details of the differences. But bringing up an autistic child gets quiet challenging for parents. Few of the reasons could be
-> Financial challenges (therapies and treatments being quite expensive)
-> Physically trying (if you have to handle a 10 year old boy who behaves like a 4 years old)
-> Peer pressure/ Social pressure
-> to find the right doctors and right therapies which will suit your child
->The biggest of all challenges is ACCEPTANCE. Generally an autistic child/adult will always appear to be as a normal human being who behaves weird. So parents or families find it difficult to accept that the child might have some issues and does need help.

Since its a neurological disorder, people often misinterpret autistic individuals as rude, disobedient, ill mannered, etc. Its sad as autistic individuals are already dealing with a lot of things within. They need help in smallest of the things which is probably peanuts for a normal human being.

Often people have heard of autism or any other disability, but they don't know how to address the families and individuals who are dealing with it. With my personal experience I can say that when I or my child receives a normal response from others(like how you would treat a mother or a parent of your child's friend), it makes me happy and feel good about the fact that I am bringing up my kids in the right kind of environment. Of course the response that you get from an autistic individual might seems as though they are just not listening, or not interested or may be they don't understand your gesture at all. The fact is that they do understand you. They simply don't know the right way to reciprocate. The only language they understand easily is love. If they receive warm and loving gestures from others irrespective of their "not so apt" behaviors, they do evolve as beautiful human beings.

I feel it's very important for us to make our coming generation sensitive towards such individuals. Autism is increasing at a very fast rate in the society. Acceptance and awareness is very less. Awareness will help the new parents to take the right action at the right time for their child. For those of us who have blessed kids will know how to help autistic people in the smallest little way. Your smallest gesture itself will make a lot of difference.

Sandhya's and Shine's Love Story...

Sandhya and Shine first met in the first year of their engineering. Shine was this very decent, well mannered, silent guy with a very sweet and innocent smile on his face. Sandhya on the other hand was a very bubbly, masti khor, khurafati ladki (I am mentioning all this cause I know her inside out ).But she too appeared (she still manages to BTW )to the world excatly the way Shine was .I guess cupid hit the couple long before they realized that they were in love.
Shine always used to be in Sandhya's check out list during our sessions of bird watching (yea yea... girls too enjoy bird watching... we would generally term it as Genda watching ). And Shine obviously used to keep admiring Sandhya. It used to be clearly visible on his face. I wonder how his friends never realized what he felt for Sandhya.I guess it was in the second year when the two of them started interacting with each other more. Tuition classes, Texplosion, Chronos, submissions, assignments... Shine would find such reasons to call up Sandhya and interact with her more than often. Third year aate aate AAG DONO TARAF BARABAR KI LAG CHUKI THI and I, being Sandhya's closest friend decided to walk up to Shine and ask him upfront about his feelings for Sandhya. Sandhya was so conscious about the whole thing that she used to keep giving me promises, warnings and threatening for not disclosing her feelings to anyone. But I strongly felt that the two were meant for each other and so I walked up to Shine and asked him.... "Dude, I know you like her.. say it now.. how long are you gonna keep it to yourself ". Shine kept stretching the argument and finally there was no conclusion to the whole argument session (Shine & I still tend to get into such argument sessions ). He later confessed that if I would have pestered him a little more, he would have said everything.. But yaar.. I lack patience
I guess after this particular incident, their feeling for each other were pretty clear and visible to them. Shine tried asking out Sandhya a couple of times, but she refused cause she was too shy (its difficult to digest the fact that this khurafati ladki can blush and go pink as well ). I guess, after this Shine included Ashwin in his plan of action and told him that he wants to propose to Sandhya. Ashwin was really happy and went and told Sandhya.. "I am so hapy for you two ".. Sandhya got the hints and she was really happy too that day. She came and told me, "You know, Shine might propose to me". It was Sandhya's birthday one day later.Shine and Ashwin wanted to buy her a gift. They came over to my place to take suggestions and I happened to ask Shine.. "What's the plan Shine... Why is Ashwin so happy for the two of you " .... And Shine got puzzled and went bonkers over Ashwin.."Why the hell did you tell Sonal about this. I dont want this to go wrong in any way" ... LOL.. Ashwin called me and asked me to keep my BIG MOUTH shut for the next time
I guess Ashwin then spoke to Shine and convinced him to actually speak to me regarding the whole plan. I still remember that day, 4th March 2005. Sandhya had invited Ashwin, Shine and me for dinner. It was her 21st birthday. Shine and Ashwin came down to my place and then Shine, for the first time, told me that he loves Sandhya a lot and he wanted to know how does she feel about it. Is she anywhere close to where he stands? I cant explain how happy was I that day. The three of us kept planning how would we call Sandhya and how will Shine propose to her. Ashwin and me used to get engaged in our silly fights & forget about Sandhya and Shine. Shine had to then cool us down every time to bring us back to the original topic
Later in the evening, I called Sandhya and asked her to meet me near Nigdi to pick me up for dinner. Shine went there instead of me and proposed to her. Her answer was obviously yes. Ashwin and I were waiting near Reliance web world for the two of them and I was praying that the whole thing should go well and Sandhya shouldn't end up beating Shine with her sandals . But everything went smoothly and they finally became the sweetest couple of the college.
That's their story from my end. I am sure there are many more faces and facts involved in it. I have shared all that I knew. BTW... The couple is very close to my heart. And all I can wish for is happiness for the two of them . God bless