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»» Learning Experience ( Updated on 25 April, 2006)
Mind Makes the Body Rich
"What did you have for lunch? I had rice and sambar," the little child seated on my lap asked. I was visiting the JSB Free Residential School run by Balaganga-dharanatha Swamiji, the 71 st head of the Adichunchanagiri Mahasamiti Mutt. I was facing more than three hundred visually impaired children and was in a state of shock as I came face to face with the fact that my world of colour and light was not shared by so many young people I was almost guilty to be able to see them. Smiling and happy the students were singing. Three hundred strong energetic voices reverberated in the hall with such power that all other thoughts were shut out of my mind.Balagangadharanatha Swamiji is one of the founder members of the Foun-
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dation for Unity of Religions and Enlightened Citizenship (FUREC). We had driven down from Bangalore to Kanakapura where this school is located. The school, with classes from primary to senior secondary and with an excellent library in Braille, is managed by a senior monk of the Adichunchanagiri Mutt. Some of the students who have passed out of the school have now become teachers here. |
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"What did you have for lunch? I had rice and sambar," the little child seated on my lap asked me again. The little girl was not more than five or six years old. She was born in Ramnagar. The moment she was born blind, her father deserted her mother. The mother after understandable struggle managed to find this school just recently and now both the mother and child are hopeful of a future. Malnutrition has kept the child frail and small built even today. |
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On getting no reply from me, she probably thought I was fasting and so changed her question for the second time. Her first question to me had been, "Yaaru? (Who are you?) Are you from Ramnagar?" I gave her my name and told her I was not from Ramnagar. When she was not able to draw me into conversation with that she changed to what she thought would be a more general subject, which was food. Now she moved further. "These bangles were bought by my mother. She will buy them for you also if you come to the fair that is going to take place next month in Ramnagar," she said trying to tempt me into conversation.
My whole being was crying. All I could think of was that she could not see me. When she touched my sari and rubbed it between her fingers, I felt she was feeling what she could not see. This led me into another bout of depression. Facing so many children who shared a similar situation dominated every sense of my being.
It was then that my little friend tugged at my sari and asked somewhat author- |
itatively, "Did you not eat lunch? What did you have for lunch?" I realized I had forgotten. Neither the past nor the future was clear to me. I realized I was obsessed by the fact that she could not see. I could not even recollect my meal. My whole being was only crying out for this little child who, for me, was defined fully and wholly by her blindness. Crying out for the hundreds of young men and women in the hall, many of whom were below twelve-thirteen. The little girl on my lap had transcended that. She was communicating to me as any person would do to another. She had gone beyond physical handicaps. There were many more things that she could do. I was not being sensitive to that. She was teaching me that it is the mind that makes the body rich; it is the spirit that is stronger than any disability, to nurture it is the secret. She was teaching me that the happiness of this life depends less on what befalls you than the way in which you take it. |
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Ever since that visit I have been sensitive to the way in which we are constantly judging and categorizing people on what they cannot do. We call people under achievers, slow learners, suffering from attention deficit disorders etc. Even in our day to day interactions we are constantly examining what the other person cannot do. The moment we identify the other person’s weakness, we feel more secure. In various degrees, it is an assessment of the inability of our fellow humans, sometime comparative, that forms the basis of our interactions. If we could appreciate the talent of the other and look beyond their disability, we would perhaps have progressed much faster as a civilization. When Alexander saw the indomitable spirit of Poros and not his impertinence, he established his greatness as a man. When Gandhi saw his "illiterate" and "poor" countrymen as evocative of a tolerant and nonviolent culture, he was able to mobilize them into a national movement. |
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