Minds 2 Open

I looked inside Gita's folder. One black and white line jumped out. It read “Birthday: 11^thJune 2004”. I had missed it – in fact everyone had missed it, but I felt particularly guilty since I am the one person who after working with her every morning for two months should have known. Apparently she is now four years old. I am simultaneously surprised and relieved. Surprised because she looks too tall for a four year old Indian child and relieved because this means that her 'slow' development is not quite as slow as it would be if she were five or six. Her development has really made me start asking questions: she is the first blind person I have ever become close to and I have absolutely no idea if her behavior is 'normal'. Normally I would argue that 'normality' is a pointless reference. Everyone is different, and comparing a child practically born into an orphanage with one born 'outside' in what I think of as the 'open World' is already difficult. Throw into that mix a child born without eyes and finding out what should be 'normal' seems not so useful. However, this is a definition which neither Gita nor I can afford to ignore. Her future depends on her 'normality'.

Hare (my Krishna Christian friend) suggested that she might be autistic; which he said may be why she becomes so stressed at meal times and although we dad dad dd da da da d and ssssssssss shs sh ssssssss everyday maybe this is why her speech has yet to come? In my rational mind my explanation is firstly she is feed far to much food: surely hunger is a natural perquisite for wanting to eat? And secondly she is force fed what she cannot see or even touch. In regards to her speech – she has grown up surrounded by noise – there are 37 children in the nursery. Although the 'inactive' children in Gita's section are all mute apart from the occasional tears, the children from the 'active' section are in the same room screaming and shouting and generally just being 'children'. Then there are the foreign voices of the volunteers speaking in varying languages including English, Spanish, Japanese, Korean and French. Then there are the Bengali voices of the Mashis and then the English, Bengali, Hindi or Nepali words from the Sisters, all of which is against the backdrop of the sound system which definitely creates a happy atmosphere playing all variations of 'Hallelujah' to Hindi tunes (which Peter loves) to 'Men in Black' (which the Princesses seem to enjoy). Now just try to imagine yourself as a blind child: A four year old in the dark who is yet to distinguish words, let along languages. It must be like looking for the library and then ending up at a Rave – blindfolded. And yet when we reach the quiet of the roof Gita will quietly start to explore her own voice. Playing with no sense sounds, which to my trained ears I also need to explore – trying to give her new verbal replies which are not in my own blahhhing vocabulary. The Mashis also complain that she makes sounds all night – which again is the only time that the nursery is quiet.

However, if she is autistic there are several routes to explore: Firstly it seems most likely that autism would be a response to her environment: where she is picked up and placed down, or if she is moving she moves 'unseen' quietly finding her way around the room to be pushed or knocked over. Her environment where she grows from a baby to a toddler without knowing a mother. Her environment where she does not know love apart from that of the Indian workers whose job it is to feed her and wash her, or the volunteers who stay for a day or a month or like me love her and then will leave her, or the Sisters, who care but who have a Faith which totters on passivity leaving her development to kindness and prayer. Secondly if she is autistic then in the past two months she has made incredible progress, which suggests that she can improve – or even over come it? Already without knowing words she communicates with me: if she wants me to sit down she will pull on my kurta until she finds my shoulders and then push. If she wants me to pick her up she will push down on my arms so that I will lift her and swing her. And she recognises me. If I find her searching for the massive yoga balls squeezed between the beds and the wall and I call to her, she will start to crawl over the beds, once she finds my hand she feels for my dive computer and my rolling tat tat tat beads wrapped around my wrist. She explores her world with increasing confidence: climbing and touching – seeing with her hands and her feet.

After spending two months with her I also know that she is very aware of her surroundings. She can fit herself into her little table and chair (although her yogi legs will always remain on top of the table), she knows that there are two sets of ten steps to the roof and that the floor of the bathroom is slippery. To me: this is all amazing within the noisy hectic impersonal life of the orphanage's nursery.

Lately we have also been exploring outside of the nursery. After attaining the correct permission from the Sister in charge of Sishu Bhavan we have been going on an adventure to the park outside for the active and 'normal' children. The first challenge was finding her shoes which fitted from the communal pile. She surprised me as I was expecting her to kick them off, but she picked up her feet and let me put them on her. Down the stairs, through the stone corridor, past the active 'abled' children and then to the mud park. First stop was the gate which she clung to, playing with the 'ting' of the padlock on the handle. Next stop was a bush which brushed against her. Feeling the leaves in her hand and pushing them so that they would bounce back to her. We stepped over a small broken brick and she let me lead her to a swing. She felt the rusty chain with her fingers, flicking the rough surface. I held it steady for her and she pulled herself up. I placed my hands around hers on the chain and told her in a stern a voice as I could to 'hold on tight'. Then I began to push – she leaned back. Head facing to the sky, smile revealing all of her teeth, breeze pushing past her cheeks and then she began to feel the momentum. Her body began to lean forward and then backwards and before long I was not needed. She quietly swung herself – a silent weeeeeee wheeeeeeeeee weeeeeee wheeeeeeeeee weeeeeeeeee wheeeeeeeeee. And then she took her hands from the chain and placed them over her ears. Quickly my stern voice reappeared and somehow she understood. But I wonder what she must have felt – to be swinging free with her hands over her ears – blocking out all sound but just feeling the momentum? I feel so happy watching her pleasure but eventually I stop the swing. She takes my hands and lowers herself to the ground.

Next stop is a concrete slide. I show her the ladder. I tell her 'One Step' She amazes me by lifting one leg and finding the first rung. This must be so scary. A foot which can slip off. But she continues and while leaning back on my body lifts the second to join her first. 'Two Step' I tell her and very slowly the process is repeated. But this is as far as she dares to go as she is already the same height has me. She swings her body around and puts her hands around my neck. I realise that she is becoming much more affection with me than she used to me. She is accepting my presence. I pick her up and swing her. Again her hands go to her ears and her smile extends even further. I slow to let her feet touch the grass. I let go and she continues to bend down and feel the earth beneath her feet. She touches the mud and then brings her hand to her nose – a new smell. Seeing her 'meet' nature is powerful and I wish I could take her to the mountains – to feel real natural energy and not this urban construct. We walk over to a tap fixed on the wall. Already she hears the drip and starts to feel for it. Gita loves water. She finds it and I turn the tap to a trickle. She holds her hands under it and then begins to lower her head under it. I allow her a few seconds and wish we could just play in the water and the mud all morning, but as always I have accepted the restrictions to her freedoms. I try to image what it is she loves about the water – the coolness, the texture, the liquidity?

To me Gita is not 'normal'; she is amazing. And I tell her every day and when I do she smiles in unknowing agreement. She has such courage to explore her surroundings which are not 'blind' friendly but which are busy and noisy. She has responded by becoming the most independent four year old I have had the pleasure to meet – and perhaps this is why I admire her so much. Because she does not ask for attention but just explores her instinct – following sounds and feeling around her – blind to the affection of strangers or workers. Lately I have been thinking more and more about what will happen to her once she grows out of the nursery. The next step in the Mother Teresa Homes is to Daya Dan; for older children and then from there to the home for mentally disabled women (the majority of whom have been taken from the prisons by the Sisters). With this progression as motivation I have started hassling the Sister in charge of the nursery about Gita's future education. To me it seems that if she is able to develop the appropriate life skills there is no reason why she needs to spend her life institutionalised. The reply I was given was that unlike Jamie, Gita will not attend any specialised school for the blind – she is 'retarded'.