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chotay

chotay
taray
foundation , jammu
&
kashmir

(Left to right) Eknoor Kour (9), Anisha Sajiad (9) and Mohammad Essa (10) are seated around a long, narrow, rectangular, brown wooden table. Eknoor and Anisha sit in red plastic chairs and Essa, who is at the head of the table, sits in a royal blue plastic chair. Eknoor wears a white sleeveless pinafore over a lilac dress with full sleeves and white round collar. Her hair is backcombed and she is smiling as she looks at a collection of red paper cups of the Coca Cola brand in front of her on the table. Anisha has a centre parting in her hair which is tied back. She wears a half-sleeved frock with navy blue and white plaid checks. In front of her there are plastic buildings blocks in many shapes coloured red, yellow, blue and green. She is looking down at four small rectangular plastic pieces she holds up with both hands; two are light green, one is light yellow and the other is light pink. Essa has short black hair and wears a full-sleeved white shirt with bluish black pants. He has cupped his chin with the palm of his left hand with the elbow resting on his left knee. With his right hand he is fingering a collection of small round multi-coloured objects in an open box.
In a room with pale grey walls, almost touching the left wall there is a silvery aluminium stairway with guardrails and six broad steps that end in a landing. The treads of the steps and the surface of the landing are royal blue. Leading down from the landing, and almost touching the facing wall, there is another stairway but there are only four steps since its risers are higher than those of the six. Anisha is standing on the flight of six steps, facing the camera, grasping the handrails on either side. Her right foot is on the third step and left foot is on the second. In the corner between the two flights of stairs there is a low, circular, black table about a foot high. Essa is standing on the table, smiling and looking sideways. To the right, there is a gently upward sloping platform with a royal blue surface and sky blue handrails. The platform ends in a tall rectangular mirror fixed to the facing wall. Eknoor is clutching the handrails and leaning forward and looking into the mirror. Her smiling face and leaning body are reflected in the mirror.
(Left to right, facing the camera) Eknoor, Anisha and Essa are seated behind a long, rectangular beige coloured wooden table. Beige wooden ice-cream sticks have been stacked and arranged in different shapes across the table. Eknoor has placed her hands on the table next to a scattered pile of sticks. With her right hand Anisha is about to pick up one of the sticks placed flat on top of a perimeter made of short vertical sticks, looking like a picket fence. Essa is looking at what Anisha is doing while putting a longer stick into another ‘picket fence’ made of longer ice-cream sticks. Behind them there is a closed window with glass panes. There is a tall brown wooden rack behind them with three shelves. There are several craft items such as vases, pots and trays lined up on the shelves. They are made of beige-coloured bamboo and jute. A couple of the vases have pink plastic roses in them with green leaves.
(From left to right) Essa, Eknoor and Anisha sit cross-legged on the floor in a room with white walls. They are sitting on a rug in a floral pattern of emerald green, beige and black. Each has a large sketchbook in front of them with coloured drawings on the white pages. Next to each book is an open box of crayons. Essa is looking down thoughtfully with his left fist under his chin and elbow on his left knee. He has shaded an image with orange slashes and an orange crayon in his right hand is touching the page. Eknoor, who has drawn geometrical shapes and coloured them orange, blue and purple, is looking sideways at a purple crayon she is holding up in her left hand. Anisha is bent low over her book, holding a grey crayon. She has drawn several images of flowers and other objects and coloured them orange, yellow, purple and blue.
(From left to right) Anisha, Essa and Eknoor sit cross-legged on a teak-coloured wooden cot. The mattress is covered with a neatly tucked in bedsheet printed with motifs of magenta, pale yellow and bluish-grey. A pillow in a cover printed with a red, bright yellow and indigo pattern is propped up against the headboard. Anisha is closely examining two pieces of white cardboard she holds in her hands. Four larger rectangular pieces of white cardboard have been fanned out in front of her; they each show a single large sketch outlined in black: of a football, a table, an ice-cream on a stick, and an outline partly obscured by the third cardboard. In front of Essa and Eknoor there are four stuffed toys lined with felt and shaped like spiders with fat round bellies. The undersides of the spiders’ bodies are purple and the upper parts are green, yellow, blue and magenta. Essa has touched his chin with his left fist with the elbow resting on his left thigh. With his right hand he is poking the yellow spider with a stick-like object. Eknoor is touching the magenta spider with both hands. Behind the kids there is a chocolate brown wooden wall shelf with various small drawings on white rectangular surfaces. The sketches are of a pair of red lips with white teeth showing; a brown rhinoceros on a patch of green grass; a brown female spotted deer next to a male with antlers and a fawn next to him; and two small brown oval fruit.
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“All these kids have a higher Emotional Quotient than we do. We are the ones lacking”

Sometimes, a casual remark can sow the seed of a path-breaking idea. At the turn of the century, Arjumand Makhdoomi was a young government employee showing a Dutch visitor around his city, Srinagar. Its masjids, shrines and temples were familiar sights to him, but not to her. As an outsider viewing them with a fresh pair of eyes, she wondered aloud why there were so many children with disabilities hanging around these places. Did that mean there was nowhere else for them to go?
 
Indeed there wasn’t, Arjumand realised. The seed germinated in his mind and he founded Chotay Taray (‘little stars’) on 5 May 2000 to educate children with disabilities. Like any pioneer he struggled to clear a new path, slashing through the thicket of negativity and misunderstanding that surrounds disability. Finally in 2003 the Chotay Taray Foundation (CTF) started operating out of a single room in Rajbagh with just two children. Till it was registered as an NGO in 2006, it was functioning as a special school but then it started acquiring professional experts to widen its scope and work for the comprehensive development of the disabled.
 
Floods impacted the Rajbagh centre in 2014 and CTF shifted to Baghat. Two years ago it moved to Bemina, which is where photographer Vicky Roy came across nine-year-olds Anisha Sajiad and Eknoor Kour and 10-year-old Mohammad Essa. Counsellor Ranbir Kaur said most kids get referred to CTF but it also conducts periodic surveys or drives to identify those who have fallen through the net – mainly those with under-privileged parents who have little or no formal education and no clue about disability.
 
Anisha was one of those identified in 2020 during the Covid pandemic. The survey missed Eknoor, who lives in the same neighbourhood as Anisha, because her family had moved to Jammu for the winter but when they returned to Srinagar they heard about CTF and took her there. Ranbir explained that children are admitted only after a thorough holistic assessment by the therapist who draws information from the parents, particularly about the “very, very important” aspect of the child’s medical history. “Rehabilitation depends on the child’s condition and mental age,” she says. “We get the best results when therapist and parents work together.”
 
Anisha, who has an intellectual disability (ID), lacked speech and comprehension when she came to the centre but has vastly improved. Her brother, who also has ID, will be enrolled shortly. Eknoor, who has cerebral palsy, could neither walk nor speak but has made tremendous progress with physiotherapy and is due for two surgeries. Her social skills have far outstripped her vocal skills which are developing inch by inch with speech therapy. Essa was referred to CTF. Autism was a foreign word for his parents who thought he was hearing impaired. Ranbir says when he first came to the centre he was hyperactive, flapping his hands, and would neither speak nor respond when spoken to. He too has improved greatly with therapy.
 
CTF provides five services depending on the child’s needs: special education, counselling, speech therapy, physiotherapy, occupational therapy and – for older children – vocational training. It has partnered with UNICEF and Child Rights and You (CRY) to provide home-based rehabilitation services to improve children’s physical and functional independence, and non-formal education in child-friendly spaces to those who couldn’t go to school because of civil unrest. In recent years it has extended its ambit to cover mental health, skill development, livelihood and women empowerment across J&K.
 
Ranbir recalled how she came to CTF in 2017 on a 21-day internship. “My first day was very tough because I had never interacted with children with disabilities before,” she said. “But my last day was the best ever!” She completed her psychology degree and returned to CTF in 2019 as a staff member. “I have loved working with the kids; in fact I spend more time with them than in my own home!” she said. “Here we are given the space and opportunity to explore new ideas and methods. The organisation believes in women’s empowerment: it has mainly female staff.”
 
Speaking about our three ‘stars’ she said Anisha loves music, especially Kashmir folk songs, and hums along to them with ‘actions’. Essa, who reacts to sensory inputs, loves to dabble his fingers in water and is always eager for a cuddle with Ranbir. Eknoor is jolly and sociable; she isn’t too pleased when Ranbir’s attention moves away from her to the other kids! These are just three of the 64 ‘taray’ from ages 3 to 18 whom the centre currently nurtures, and the thousands more whose lives have benefitted from the support of CTF for over 20 years.

Photos:

Vicky Roy

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