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SOCIAL SKILLS (Acceptance and Inclusion- 4 )

SOCIAL SKILLS
(Acceptance and Inclusion- 4 ) by Jaya Sudhakar and Siddhanth Palaparti



The rains bring fond memories of Mumbai, rains and Mumbai are inseparable. Even as the southwest monsoon leaves its magic over the island city year after year, every Mumbaikar or even a visitor has countless observations and multiple stories to tell about the ‘rain experiences’. Over the years, Siddhanth has thoroughly enjoyed the Mumbai monsoon in all its glory – from stretching out his hand to feel the first rains of the season, looking forward to going to school wearing a raincoat, sailing paper boats in the puddles of rainwater, to relishing hot ‘butta’ or freshly roasted cob (with a dash of lemon dipped in salt and spices) procured from street vendors. As he grew older, he used to have anxious moments too when dark clouds and impending rain delayed the possibility of going outdoors.


The peak of the rainy season – the months between July and September- brought with it numerous festivals and the joy associated with them.There was a Shiva temple near our home and Siddhanth loved to see the stream of devotees making their way to the shrine on the auspicious Shravan Mondays. One memory which remains etched in our mind is associated with the Brahmakamal flower.
When Siddhanth was around 9 years of age, he had a good friend in Hemant who was just a couple of years younger and lived on the same floor. He was a regular visitor to our home and the two kids would bond over board games. One rainy night, Hemant’s mother Shilpa went around inviting everyone in the building to come over for a few minutes as the first Brahmakamal flower had bloomed in her plant. As we all assembled she lit a small diya, did a small puja and distributed pedhas. Prior to this I had neither seen nor heard about the beautiful flower with its divine fragrance. It usually blooms only in the night. I had gone over with Siddhanth and my sister who was visiting us then. My mother couldn’t accompany us as she was in the early stages of recovery from a paralytic stroke and her movements were severely restricted. She felt very happy for us and listened to us with keen interest as we tried to describe the beauty and fragrance of the sacred flower as well as we could.
The following week Shilpa was delighted to get a bloom of three Brahmakamal flowers and that too on an auspicious Shravan Monday. She was able to offer a couple of flowers to the Shivaling in the nearby temple and guess what? She came over to give the third flower to my mother. My mother’s joy knew no bounds.The kind gesture was a big morale booster for her. We kept the flower in a small mandir in my mother’s room and the entire room was filled with its sweet fragrance.

The other rain festivals too brought several opportunities for Siddhanth to interact with our neighbours and his friends from the Sports Club. As our flat on the second floor was facing the street, Siddhanth’s friends would come over to witness the ‘Dahi Handi’ celebrations from our living room window. Raksha Bandhan saw Sirsha unfailingly tying the Rakhi to Siddhanth giving him a wonderful feel of the festival. Likewise the Ganesh festival meant visiting Pandals with his friends and cousins and the visits to the homes of many friends, where Ganesh idols were kept and worshipped with reverence for a few days before immersion.The processions during immersion were also interesting to watch along with friends from our living room window – the music, dance and huge Ganesh idols – the whole atmosphere getting charged with a feeling of bhakti and a twinge of regret to bid farewell to the Elephant God after his annual visit to the city – Siddhanth enjoyed them all, the noise notwithstanding.

Over the years, we realized that even though the heavy spells of rains in Mumbai bring outdoor sports and swimming sessions in the sports club for specially abled children to a grinding halt – all of which form a major chunk and significant part of the lives of our neurodivergent children and adults – the vibrant community celebrations of our monsoon festivals step in to compensate. They always offer a lot of scope for our individuals on the spectrum and our families to mingle with our friends and relatives and rejuvenate ourselves.


Author Jaya Sudhakar

Jaya Sudhakar has done her Masters in Physics and was employed as an Asst.Manager in a PSU. Her son’s diagnosis urged her to seek voluntary retirement from service . She is actively involved with Forum for Autism, Nayi Disha and The Spectrum Autism. Friends,tending to plants, reading, writing, music, movies, travelling and a little bit of spirituality are her perennial energy boosters.

Typing of story in Word and Creative graphics done by CreativeSaathi Siddhanth Palaparti, Jaya’s son

Siddhanth is a budding graphic designer, coder and music lover. He has graduated in computer applications and completed several certificate courses. His work trajectory includes internships, freelancing and voluntary work for social causes. He derives immense happiness from remembering birthdays and wishing everyone for it. Swimming, travelling and playing music on the keyboard are his other passions.

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SOCIAL SKILLS
(Acceptance and Inclusion-1 )

By Jaya Sudhakar and Siddhanth Palaparti



We lived in a rented flat for 17 years in Mumbai from the time Siddhanth was around 6+. It was closer to his school. There were 22 flats in the building. The cosmopolitan atmosphere was conducive to multiple opportunities for Siddhanth’s social skills to bloom. Prior to that we were residing in office quarters with fewer residents in the building and it lacked the diverse professional background of our neighbours in the present building.

As Siddhanth was verbal and still young at age, there was no noticeable difference between him and his peers except when it came to unstructured play and the oddity of him speaking only in English. He overcame the latter with time as Hindi and Marathi were introduced in school. His inherent hyperlexic tendencies stood by him in swiftly cracking the code for reading the Devanagari script which in turn made sense of all the Hindi and Marathi words he had been hearing around him so far. He picked up a little bit of Tamil and Telugu also along the way, the languages spoken by his maternal and paternal relatives respectively.

The gap in unstructured play always remained wide but we made up for it with me being around him as a facilitator in structured play with his friends, by introducing Board Games and by taking him to various parks regularly, often with friends. Siddhanth picked up Board Games easily and with his knack for computer skills, playing computer games were always a favourite. The summer vacations provided a wonderful opportunity for Siddhanth to interact with friends through board games and computer games. Our home would be an open house with all the kids of the building joining in. Many lazy hot afternoons were spent playing pen and paper games like ‘Name, Place, Animal, Thing’, ‘X zero’, ‘Raja,Rani,Chor,Police’, board games such as ‘Snakes & Ladders’, ‘Ludo’, ‘Scrabble’, ‘Housie’ and ‘Monopoly(Trade)’ and of course the versatile playing cards were not left out. Besides the fun element, Siddhanth was able to pick up useful social skills like turn taking, waiting, taking initiatives and being assertive.His language and communication skills improved vastly. Likewise,many mathematical concepts were reinforced in a fun way. In those pre-Internet days, we used to play CDs on the desktop. Siddhanth’s favourite was the KBC CD. It was an interactive audio-visual game with GK questions and answers in multiple choice format. As the television show ‘Kaun Banega Crorepati’ was immensely popular, so was this game with all the kids. They thoroughly enjoyed playing it. There were many activity CDs too – which Siddhanth and kids of his age enjoyed.

The initiatives in the vacations extended to the regular days. Oftentimes a kid or two would drop in after school hours to play a board game with Siddhanth or share some computer time with him (it helped that we were in the nascent days of the home PC then – it wasn’t as ubiquitous as it is now and many children found it a novelty) or would be more than willing to accompany us to one of the parks in the neighbourhood. Slides were always a favourite with Siddhanth. He started enjoying jungle gyms, swings and see-saws after regular OT sessions and because his friends were a big inspiration. Invariably the kids who sought Siddhanth were the very active ones who basically needed a lot of playtime and whose mothers were only too glad to let them spend an hour or two with us as they were assured of their safety.


When Siddhanth entered his teens, his father was transferred to a smaller town. As we couldn’t find an inclusive school there, Siddhanth and I stayed back in Mumbai to
continue his studies. During his school vacations we would join his father at Sangli. My husband always has a way with children. So some teenage boys from his neighbourhood were regular visitors to our home even before Siddhanth and I went there. Again, the games that we had carried from Mumbai helped Siddhanth to bond with them and make new friends. Similarly the vacations spent with cousins also involved a lot of board games and word games for Siddhanth.

Those were the days before the advent of the smartphone. Play and interaction with peers formed an important part of Siddhanth’s daily routine. I am thankful to all the workshops , OT professionals and Siddhanth’s school ambience for stressing on this important aspect of his life. It went a long way in making our life fun and enjoyable.



Author Jaya Sudhakar

Jaya Sudhakar has done her Masters in Physics and was employed as an Asst.Manager in a PSU. Her son’s diagnosis urged her to seek voluntary retirement from service . She is actively involved with Forum for Autism, Nayi Disha and The Spectrum Autism. Friends,tending to plants, reading, writing, music, movies, travelling and a little bit of spirituality are her perennial energy boosters.

Typing of story in Word and Creative graphics done by CreativeSaathi Siddhanth Palaparti, Jaya’s son

Siddhanth is a budding graphic designer, coder and music lover. He has graduated in computer applications and completed several certificate courses. His work trajectory includes internships, freelancing and voluntary work for social causes. He derives immense happiness from remembering birthdays and wishing everyone for it. Swimming, travelling and playing music on the keyboard are his other passions.

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mysupersaathi

MySuperSaathi Yuvi and his friends

Autism awareness – Comic strip 6

Designer – Yuvaan is an energetic and a happy 5+ year old child studying in grade 1.
• He loves his academics, coloring, computers, maths, reading books and writing stories.
• He loves visiting new places, and leisure activities like swimming, running and playing
• He’s amongst the top rankers in Genius Cerebrum International Olympiads of all the subjects.
• He has bagged number of awards, certificates and medals in academics, sports and co-cirruclar activities.
• He is a self learner.


Artist Kabir Vernal

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mysupersaathi

MySuperSaathi Yuvi and his friends

Autism awareness- Comic strip 5

Designer – Yuvaan is an energetic and a happy 5+ year old child studying in grade 1.
• He loves his academics, coloring, computers, maths, reading books and writing stories.
• He loves visiting new places, and leisure activities like swimming, running and playing
• He’s amongst the top rankers in Genius Cerebrum International Olympiads of all the subjects.
• He has bagged number of awards, certificates and medals in academics, sports and co-cirruclar activities.
• He is a self learner.

Artist Morpheus Nag

Categories
mysupersaathi

MySuperSaathi Yuvi and his friends

Autism awareness- Comic strip 4

Designer – Yuvaan is an energetic and a happy 5+ year old child studying in grade 1.
• He loves his academics, coloring, computers, maths, reading books and writing stories.
• He loves visiting new places, and leisure activities like swimming, running and playing
• He’s amongst the top rankers in Genius Cerebrum International Olympiads of all the subjects.
• He has bagged number of awards, certificates and medals in academics, sports and co-cirruclar activities.
• He is a self learner.