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kavan

kavan
suryaprakash
iyer , karnataka

Kavan Suryaprakash Iyer (25), wearing olive green pants and an emerald green knitted shirt with collar, sits on a grey granite bench in a veranda paved with large, square, greenish-grey marble slabs. He has a thin moustache and a beard on his chin. He grips the frame of an aluminium walker with both hands. There is a beige brick wall behind him and green trees in the background.
Mid shot of Kavan, wearing a full-sleeved knitted shirt, standing indoors in front of a large steel water dispenser placed on a platform. The shirt has a zip-up front and horizontal stripes of grey, white, orange and navy blue. Three steel tumblers are placed on the platform next to the dispenser. Kavan is reaching out for a tumbler with his right hand.
Kavan wearing a black T-shirt sits behind a large rectangular beige table, facing the camera. In front of him on the table there is a light blue sheet of paper with an abstract drawing. He is colouring the drawing with a black crayon in his left hand. Stuck to the beige brick wall behind him with selotape are four white paper cut-outs decorated with colourful bows and stars. One paper cut-out has a drawing of a pink star with the word STAR pencilled below it in black capitals. Another white cut-out has two magenta bows stuck to it as well as drawings of a sky blue star and a multi-coloured star. The third is cut out in the shape of a bell decorated with small colourful motifs. The fourth is a large rectangular sheet of white paper on which a colourful abstract shape and a yellow star are drawn; stuck to the paper are two dark blue bows and two magenta bows. The table has coloured felt pens and many coloured scraps of cloth.
Kavan wearing his striped full-sleeved shirt is standing behind a black marble-topped table in the kitchen. Bending his head slightly he is putting some food on a steel plate with a long-handled big steel spoon. On either side of the plate there is a huge cylindrical steel vessel and a medium-sized round-copper-bottomed steel vessel. The lid of the large vessel rests on the table leaning on the side of the vessel at an angle. The L-shaped kitchen platform behind him has a black marble top and there are beige wooden cabinets on the wall above it.
Kavan, wearing a black T-shirt and olive green pants, sits on the side of a grey iron single cot in a room with a glossy, rust-red cemented floor and beige brick walls. His aluminium walker stands on the floor near his outstretched left leg. The mattress on the cot is covered with an ash grey bedsheet printed with black and white motifs. The mattress has a thin soft pillow with a white pillowcase. A white razai (quilted bedsheet) printed with pink floral motifs is folded and placed at the foot of the bed.
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“I have an excellent memory for dates, especially birthdays. I do data-entry work”

When we spoke to Kavan Suryaprakash Iyer he was already making plans for his 26th birthday which falls on 22 February. “Now the whole family will be talking about nothing else,” said his mother Sudha. “Today he told our domestic worker what food he will give her and to make sure to come on that day.” Kavan, who has cerebral palsy, thrives on anticipation; he loves the build-up to special occasions and makes sure everyone around him is aware of it too! 
 
But his own birthday is not the only one Kavan thinks about. Hundreds of names and birthdays are stored in that remarkable brain of his – and they’re not just of friends and family but also of passing acquaintances. His mother calls him a “walking calendar” and he is his father’s “birthday almanac”. Geetanjali Sarangan (Gitu) of Snehadhara, where he stays four days a week, vouches for his amazing power of recall. She says any visitor to the centre is immediately buttonholed by Kavan and asked their name and date of birth; he then starts reminding Snehadhara members about it two to three days beforehand.
 
“Kavan is one of the most fun elements of the Snehadhara campus!” says Gitu. “He loves meeting people, is highly curious, has a great sense of humour, and loves being the centre of attention.” He enters data from the centre’s registers into the laptop, a responsibility he takes very seriously indeed, and he is eager to take part in every activity. At home his mother says he relishes fried stuff like murukku and vada. ‘Must-haves’ are puff, samosa and cake, and on New Year’s Eve it has to be pizza for dinner.
 
This outgoing adult began his life under a very different set of circumstances. He was born pre-term, in Bangalore Children’s Hospital, and had undergone two surgeries by the time he was 40 weeks old. The couple soon became aware of their firstborn’s disability and started the rehabilitation process when he was a toddler. Suryaprakash worked in an IT firm at that time and it was Sudha (whom he calls a “superstar mom”) who took Kavan for different treatments including daily physiotherapy for years on end without a break. When they admitted him to the Spastic Society of India (SSI) at age six he was unable to walk. But after regular treatment by some good physiotherapists and a surgery to straighten his leg, his locomotor skills slowly improved and he was able to walk with a mobility aid.
 
After he passed his English exam at SSI Kavan joined Samarthanam. He wasn’t too keen on academics but his brain is constantly ticking, observing, gathering new information. He knows four Indian languages and has even picked up some Mandarin! Cricketers’ names, Kannada songs… there is hardly anything his ever-curious mind doesn’t absorb and retain. Suryaprakash was posted to Shanghai for a year or so when Kavan was four and even today he can instantly recognise pictures of places and monuments he saw in China.
 
Kavan is always hanging around his siblings. He is very close to his sister Keerthana, in her final year of engineering, and brother Bhargav, in tenth standard. While growing up, he would get upset if his father scolded either of them. One of the T-shirts he wore for Vicky’s photo shoot was bought by Keerthana when she went on a solo trip to Singapore.
 
Suryaprakash is an angel investor who works with a syndicate of friends, he is also a board member and an angel investor of AssisTech Foundation, which supports and promotes disability-focussed start-ups. He and Sudha did their due diligence before they zeroed in on Snehadhara for Kavan. Since he likes being around people they made sure he wasn’t in a place where “he’ll just be made to sit in a corner.” They praise Snehadhara for its inclusivity. The “after us, what?” question naturally preoccupies them and Suryaprakash hopes for someone who will “love and care for him as much as Sudha does” – which is a tall order. Meanwhile, their eldest son carries on invigorating every space he occupies. Whether he is at home, at Snehadhara, or vacationing with his family, Kavan wants to be where the action is!

Photos:

Vicky Roy

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