Ode to unlearn.

As I sit to write about my travel and the lessons it gave, I am wondering whether my piece would be able to justice to all those who gave me lessons that no book could have ever given.

Last week my colleague Iqbal and I travelled to Hyderabad to train people in telling their life experiences, life stories through comics. The people we were out to train were differently able, that added more meaning to what we were there to do. But before I begin to write about it, Let me thank Sharad Sharma, founder of World Comics India for the opportunity to unlearn and discover the life beyond the cities. As a development communication student, we have learnt that development can never be done sitting in classroom and to communicate it you need to fold your sleeves and get in touch with the grassroots. Otherwise we know only about issues only through newspapers or other media, if any way they are interested in telling the stories of the last person with no media access. The reason why our development policies have failed and why development hasn’t reached the people who needed it the most , it is because we did not learn about the ground issues, thus were always superficial in our understanding and approach towards development. Earlier when he came to our class to teach us this tool for development communication, we just learnt it and were happy to know another medium through which stories could be said .There was learning but no transformation.

Transformation happened last week when Iqbal and I were at Catholic Health Association Of India, in Telangana. This time we went there as trainers to help people with disability and the people who are working with them, to use this alternative media to raise the issue of disability in public. Before this I had big block in my mind regarding people with disability-that they are gloomy their lives are bleak, I had sympathy for them but not empathy. May be in society I have just seen them as beggars and helpless on streets and read about the extraordinary achievers who challenged their disability and emerged winners. But the four day workshop broke all my stereotypes I had in my mind. Again I am angry at education system and society that did not make me human enough to get into the shoes of others. It made me more of a robot. Meeting and knowing them in person was life changing experience.

Some of them had difficulty in concentration, became restless but they relentlessly did what they were asked to, they would do it at any cost. I was amazed to see the sheer dint of passion two people had, one girl who was partially blind with minutest vision, she wanted to become English professor. Her story is stranger than fiction. Her elder and younger sister were also blind and they were parents less. She made comics on her family, how they are challenging darkness in their lives and battling alone when they were being ridiculed relatives.

Other guy who was also partially blind and wanted to become lawyer .The passion with which he was following my instruction ashamed me of my enthusiasm towards life and work. Another beautiful thing was it was only through English we communicated as they both were tamilian .The language could not deter them to understand what they wanted to learn.

Then there was Khoda Bhai, 18 year old boy from Gujarat who on his wheel chair smiled and giggled throughout the day. He would teach his mentors from his special school how to draw and write dialogue in comics. He made his story on friendship. I would also recall the innocence on the face 30 year old lady Vanitha, who was mentally challenged, she couldn’t use her right hand and leg properly, but the magnificent part was that she drew. Her simple story read that she studied till tenth standard and once her elder sister got married, she helped her mother in household chores. She played. She laughed. I asked her mentor “is she able to manage her periods”, she replied “yes dear, she manages it pretty well.” Her story tells us that a mentally challenged woman is not burden on her parents; if loved and understood even she can be part of the family.

 I also found out that people who are working for these disabled people are blocked. They have not been sensitized properly, they live with the stereotype that people with disability need to prove themselves to the world, they need to win the race, and they need to come first only then they can get place back in the society. Why can’t they remain they? We might train them to come first, but then they would lose their originality.

Many emotional issues of the disabled people also came out as well. Things like Love, companionship and marriage which we so called normal people think was only reserved for us and think that these are not meant for them. How inhuman we become when we think that way.   In his Comics Uday Kumar who was physically challenged that how today people have  made fun of love. He told his own story where he dated girl on facebook but when she saw him in person she said “Oh!My God”.

I made some very good friends there, sister Sujata, Sister Mary who treated me four days like their sister. Sister Annmaria had difficult time in answering my difficult questions on nun hood. I asked “whether sex is really sinful? Why is it necessary to control your desire?” She answered me patiently though she was not able to convince me.

On the fourth day people were asked to chalk out the plan how they would use comics to bring issues they think to come in public so what if no big media covers it. One group came to me and told they want to bring the issue of one garment factory in Kerala that employs only married and sexual exploitation happens there too. That time I did not understand the idea behind hiring of married woman but a few days back I was reading text from Karl Marx’s Das Kapital which said “one manufacturer employed only married women in his power looms, because they more attentive and docile than the unmarried woman and had to work to the very end of their strength in order to obtain the necessaries of life for their families”. I understood why that garment factory did the same. Some time in my life I would like to visit that factory.

 While we were packing up one boy who was mentally challenged came and kissed Iqbal’s Sumit’s and my hand, the gesture of innocent love, love which is not laced by any condition, its just giving. Along with life changing experience, it gave me much needed break from the city life. City life chokes .There is so much noise; at times I find it difficult to hear my voice. Never in my life had I unlearned so much within four days.