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roji

roji
nisha , jharkhand

Close-up of Roji Nisha (21) with black hair tied back and wearing a sky blue top with white embroidery on the front. She has turned her head to her right and is smiling. She has raised her right hand up to touch the left side of her head. A decorative mehendi pattern runs all along the back of her arm, hand and fingers. A broad, gold-coloured bangle adorns her wrist.
Roji in purple T-shirt and light blue tight jeans is sitting outdoors on a large, flat slab. Wild plants and weeds grow all around her. In front of her is a flock of brown, white, black and grey ducks. She is holding out both arms and cupped palms towards them. Her right palm holds what appears to be rice or some other white-coloured feed.
Roji sits cross-legged on a charpoy in a room with blue walls. Dressed in yellow salwar-kameez and white dupatta, she is looking into a small mirror that she holds with both hands. Her hair is open and falls around her back and shoulders. The charpoy is woven with orange and green plastic rope. It has two pillows with multi-coloured covers.
Roji is standing with hands behind her back, leaning against a wooden door that looks out onto the street. She is looking down at her feet wearing in slippers with yellow straps. She wears a magenta churidar and blue kameez.
Roji poses with her family. Sitting on a wooden bench from left to right: Sister-in-law Suraiya Parween (24), grandmother Salma Bibi, mother Mariyam Nisha (54) and father Anwar Saudagar (60). Behind them, Roji stands in the centre between her brothers Mohammed Jabed (25) at extreme left and Mohammed Jahid (20) at the extreme right. Suraiya wears an orange and violet pattern salwar kameez and cream dupatta. Salma wears a sari with a red, green and violet design; the pallu is draped over her white hair. Mariyam is in a rose-red salwar-kameez. Anwar wears a blue and black checked lungi and a pinkish white kurta. Jabed is in a collar T-shirt with horizontal blue and white stripes and navy blue track pants. Rosi has on a front-open red shirt with bell-shaped three-fourth sleeves worn over a short, white T-shirt with a red flower on the front. She wears a navy blue skirt decorated with red and yellow flowers. Jahid wears black trousers paired with a white T-shirt.
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“I like to wear lipstick and jeans. Watching serials is how I spend my time”

When Roji Nisha (21) was born, in the ‘Steel City’ of Bokaro in Jharkhand, she was so tiny that her father was afraid to even lift her. A premature baby, she weighed only 1.25 kg. As she developed, her parents found something amiss about her. They spent money on medical tests such as the CT scan and EEG. From their limited understanding of what the doctors told them, they gathered that she had a “weak brain (dimaag kamjore hai)” which didn’t contain enough “fluid / water (paani)”. Her disability certificate shows that she has ‘Mild Mental Retardation’.

Roji’s parents thought that vitamins would activate her intellect. To this day they believe that if they had had the money to give her milk and fruits it would have fed her brain and enhanced its ability. “She needs to drink Horlicks and we can’t afford it,” her father says repeatedly. When she was six they tried sending her to an anganwadi but it became evident that she had a learning disability.

Disability is not new to the family. Roji’s father used to work in the Bokaro steel plant but a prolonged illness cost him his job. His eldest son Mohammed Jabed (25) is vision impaired. Jabed has had blurry vision in one eye since childhood. His grandmother, on one of her visits, thought he was falling behind at school because he was getting into bad company. So she whisked him away to Purulia in West Bengal, where he studied till ninth standard. But then he started missing home, so he returned to Bokaro to complete his tenth.

Jabed found employment in Delhi and married Suraiya Parween (24) in 2014. After just a year, his good eye developed a problem and deteriorated despite treatment. He returned to Bokaro where, apparently from a doctor’s misdiagnosis, the eye lost its vision.

Roji and her parents share a room in her uncle’s house. Jabed and his brother Jahid (20) live in a two-room house built with Rs 1.2 lakh granted via the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojna plus some money from relatives. Jabed and Suraiya occupy one room. Jahid has converted part of the other room into a small shop selling biscuits and other items, through which he earns less than Rs 800 a month. They have also built a toilet under the central government scheme. The family gets by on ration rice and the pensions that Roji and her father receive.

Roji can take care of her bodily needs and manages to perform household chores. Can she be trained for some kind of employment? The thought has not crossed her parents’ minds. She spends her entire day watching TV. Like any teenager she likes wearing lipstick, jeans and T-shirts. Her indulgent parents buy her what she fancies, whether new clothes or new chappals. She may not go to school but when she asks for a schoolbag, how can her father refuse her?

Photos:

Vicky Roy

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