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n.

n.
sadhana , andaman
and
nicobar

A smiling N. Sadhana (13) dressed in her school uniform is walking towards the camera in a narrow space between two buildings. The ground is roughly cemented and behind her there is a wicket gate with the iron grill painted vermillion. Her curly hair is in a centre parting and tied behind her. She wears a purplish blue half-skirt and a sleeveless vest in the same material worn over a half-sleeved shirt in grey and white pinstripes. Around her armpits are the broad pink straps of her schoolbag worn as a backpack. The walls of the buildings on either side are lined with ceramic tiles halfway up. The left wall has crimson brick-shaped tiles and the right wall, white with a floral pattern of violet and green.
Sadhana is smiling broadly as she sits on the threshold of the front door with her feet on the ground. She is hugging a soft toy close to her stomach. It is a small, pale yellow teddy bear with white ears and orange eyes. She wears a light pink sleeveless top with a Chinese collar and knitted navy shorts with a red and white stripe along the thigh. She wears dangling golden earrings and a small yellow turmeric mark in the centre of her forehead. The wooden door and door frame are painted orange. A bright yellow stripe is painted along the jamb. The wall is painted a muddy brown.
Mid shot of Sadhana sitting on a large brown wooden single sofa with rust-red cushions. She is writing in a large notebook placed on a lilac-topped table. The wall behind her is aquamarine blue. She wears a grey T-shirt and a pale pink bib around her neck. The notebook pages have been divided with a pencil into large squares, three in each row. On the top left corner square she has just written a slightly misshapen capital ‘A’ with a black pencil held in her left hand. The other two squares in the top row contain a neat capital ‘A’.
Sadhana, dressed in grey T-shirt and light pink half-skirt, is lying crosswise in a double sofa with her legs stretched out. Her back is propped up against a yellow cushion placed over the right arm rest. The brown wooden sofa has broad arm rests and its seat and back have foam cushions covered in rust-red fabric. It is pushed up against a corner of the room which has parrot green walls. Sadhana is looking upwards watching a flat screen TV mounted on a semi-circular brown wooden ledge. The ledge is fixed high up on the corner with metal brackets. On the screen there are a male and a female actor facing each other. He wears a red full-sleeved shirt. She wears a red sari in the same shade as the shirt, with an emerald green border, and an emerald green blouse.
Sadhana poses with her family, all of them sitting cross-legged on a bed in a corner of a room with dark sky blue walls. From left to right her brother Keshav Nihar (7), father A. Nagaraj (44), Sadhana and mother Dhanalakshmi (36). Keshav wears blue shorts and a yellow and white T-shirt printed with cartoony smiling faces. His left hand rests on his thigh and he has cupped his chin with his right hand such that his thumb and forefinger form a V. Nagaraj wears a sky blue blue vest and a lungi in a crisscross pattern of sky blue, black and white. Sadhana wears her light pink sleeveless top and navy shorts. Dhanalakshmi wears a lilac nighty printed with a sky blue and crimson floral pattern. She has draped a Turkish towel in blue and white checks across her chest and shoulders. The bedspread has a design of triangles in light pastel shades of sky blue, yellow, pink, sapphire blue and ash grey.
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“I like watching Tamil serials and playing with my younger brother”

There can be no greater blessing for financially constrained parents of a disabled child than to have a government school equipped with a special teacher just walking distance from their home.
 
Schoolday mornings witness a flurry of activity in the household of A. Nagaraj (44) and Dhanalakshmi (36) who live in Prem Nagar, Port Blair in the Andamans. Husband and wife share household chores. Nagaraj, a construction labourer on daily wages, goes to work and Dhanalakshmi takes Sadhana (13) to the Government Secondary School in Junglighat barely a kilometre away. About 1.5 km further ahead is Vivekananda Kendra Vidyalaya, one of the oldest schools on the islands, where Sadhana’s brother Keshav Nihar (7) studies.
 
The couple fell in love when they were in school! He dropped out after passing Class 9 while she went on to complete Class 12. Despite being from different communities and villages they got married in January 2010 with no objection from either of their families. Dhanalakshmi conceived in March and delivered Sadhana in December. Nagaraj says although their doctor (who had a private practice) initially advised a C-section he went ahead with a critical vaginal delivery. The baby had birth anoxia from a lack of oxygen during delivery. Consequently she suffered periodic brain seizures (convulsions or fits) from the age of one, and her fine motor skills and speech are severely impaired: she cannot grasp objects and can only utter a couple of sounds.
 
It took six years for the couple to pluck up enough courage to try for another child because they were fearful of what might happen during the delivery. They prudently opted for a C-section in a government hospital. Dhanalakshmi says her children are close to one another and play together. “She likes it when he calls her ‘didi’ (big sister),” she says. When Keshav wants Sadhana to hand over a toy or wants an object kept at a height he is unable to reach, she is ever willing to do his bidding.
 
Sadhana is currently in Class 5 and is assisted by the special ed teacher. “She has now learnt to write A using a pencil gripper,” says Dhanalakshmi. She stays back in school till it is time to take her daughter home at 1 p.m. because she has to help her with basic needs such as eating and going to the toilet. She has difficulty swallowing and can only eat soft foods such as egg and banana (she likes laddoo and jamun too) which her mother has to push down her throat.
 
Dhanalakshmi says Sadhana is very sociable and doesn’t like being alone. She takes part in games such as football that the school organises for disabled kids and has won prizes in the running race (only uneven surfaces pose a challenge for her). “She has started learning Sign Language, can Sign red, yellow, blue and green, and is learning orange now,” says Dhanalakshmi. To improve eye contact the special ed teacher has recommended ‘matching’ games – matching words with their corresponding images – which Dhanalakshmi has downloaded on the mobile phone for her. She likes playing video games such as Temple Run on the mobile, and watching Tamil serials and cartoons on TV (her mother has downloaded her favourite ‘Dora’ on the mobile from YouTube). Nagaraj’s aged mother lives with them and although she is unable to help with the housework she keeps an eye on Sadhana when the couple go out.
 
Sadhana has a UDID card (Unique Disability ID) by way of which a disability pension of ₹2,500 gets credited into her account every month. Although Nagaraj’s earnings of around ₹24,000 per month can just about take care of the rent, food, clothes, medicines, electricity and so on, he says he never dips into the disability pension which is exclusively hers. “Once a year we might take out some money to get her a little gold jewellery,” he says. “This year we’re planning to put her money in some insurance scheme for her.” He says around five years ago the District Deputy Health Officer had said they might be eligible for a lumpsum of 30 to 40K (Nagaraj doesn’t know under which government scheme) and had asked for a lot of paperwork, but nothing came of it.
 
Nagaraj says, “I do feel bad when people pass remarks about our daughter but we ignore their comments and mind our own business.”

Photos:

Vicky Roy

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