Shrikumar Poddar, The 8th Wonder of the World
This photo doesn’t do justice to Shrikumar, but that’s hardly surprising. Nothing does. It isn’t possible to describe him, to imitate him, to keep up with him or to thank him. He is simply a force of nature, unstoppable and unswerving. Both Ravi and I owe him more than words can say. Shrikumar and Ravi […]
Edmund Cluett, Guruji
Happy Birthday, Edmund! Edmund and his wife Angie were volunteers at the Foundation in 2006 – 2007. They are two of the most wonderful and talented people we have ever had with us and it would be impossible to list all the ways they helped us to grow. But today, on Edmund’s birthday, I want […]
Everything We Have To Talk About
My mother, my children. It’s an old story, says Sharon Olds, the oldest we have on our planet – the story of replacement. I look into my mother’s eyes on each visit home and I wonder anew at the mysteries of aging and loss, wonder at this brilliant woman who now cannot name her children […]
Unobtrusive
It’s difficult not to be noticed in a wheelchair. Moy Moy and all of us love her chair, and are grateful for the way it lets her get around and be part of everything we do. But unobtrusive it ain’t. That means we are a production wherever we go. And how we feel about it […]
Train Bai
Remember Train Bai? The baby born on a moving train a few weeks ago? Her mom went to the loo and gave birth to a daughter so tiny she slipped down the toilet and landed on the tracks below. And survived! This is not Train Bai, but like her, this little girl was born two […]
Sroobius Pip Stutters
I heard this great interview on National Public Radio this morning as I was getting Moy Moy ready for school. It was with a British hip-hop singer who, along with his partner/composer Dan Le Sac, has suddenly become wildly popular both in the UK and the US. His lyrics are so interesting, for example, in […]
Getting In the Door
The awareness team organized a great workshop on accessibility today and managed to persuade 21 people to attend – 21 very hard to persuade people at that! These were engineers from the PWD, people from the Ministry of Social Welfare and Empowerment, the Mayor’s office, schools, NGOs and our friendly lawyer, Ravi Bhatia. The team […]
Tell Me A Story, I’ll Sing You A Song
While I was in Mumbai, I went with Vibha to a meeting organized by India Book House to discuss prospects for new books in the area of special needs. The original idea was for Vibha to write a book for parents of kids with disabilities, but she cleverly passed the task on to me. While […]
Reality
My friend (and sometimes mentor) Dunu Roy often accuses me of sugarcoating the difficult aspects of disability. He says I tend to use pictures like the one on the left, and avoid those like the one on the right. I guess he’s right. I guess I figure people already have so many of those old […]
Children Want to Learn
I spent the last few days editing a book which Paula has written for us (watch this space for the release date!). It’s about teaching maths. It’s a wonderful and practical manual, full of simple ways to teach very difficult concepts, but its real beauty is the attitude which pervades it: an attitude which was […]