Today, as a young man asked the driver to halt in the middle of Bagmati Bridge so that he could step out of the tempo in the middle of traffic, I commented out loud. Had he gotten off at Kupondole or Thapathali it would have been one less passenger obstructing traffic, as is the guilty pleasure of many that use public transportation. The young man was gone by the time I finished my thought but the older gentleman seated across smiled. “Let him be … he had a card from the mental institute in Patan… Lagankhelko pagal khana”. Tapping his temple he added, “Ali theek chhaina hola … psycho-pscyho chha”.
Implying the guy wasn’t all there in the head, I was informed of his somewhat “psycho” status. As a friend of another woman who has been suicidal in the past and attempting to put her life together despite severe depression, I winced at his choice of word.
Of course he didn’t resort to the word “Psycho” to be derogative, to him that was probably just one mean of excusing the young man.
Unfortunately though, it is intentional plenty of other times. We have only to peruse facebook to see comments splattered - “Thanks for the tag – I look so “special” – quote unquote and “OMG – that is sooo retarded! I can’t believe he did that!” Here the ones commenting on photos are exactly aware of their choice of words. “Special” is barely code for “stupid” as it implies mentally handicapped. “Retarded”, of course, is self-evident.
Call me atypical, but I firmly believe those who experience mental diseases are in the truest sense of the word, special. I am the kind of Christian who is convinced it’s not a birth defect, much less a curse. And my kind of theology tells me their birth is an act of God.
I didn’t always think this way.
In ninth grade my schoolmate told me her brother had Downs Syndrome. I said, “Wow, I’m so sorry,” and offered her a sympathetic face – one component of my father’s NGO provided care for mentally handicapped children and if “normal” children scared me, the ones at his work left me anxious and nervous. My friend looked amused, but borderline disgusted. She said what kind of a person was I to assume it was a problem?
As I sat there confused she explained how her parents were on the verge of divorce when her brother was born with Down syndrome. As I thought of how such a “defected” birth must have further strained her parents’ relationship, she surprised me by claiming the contrary. Having to cooperate to raise a child under such unusual circumstances had forced her parents to work closely with each other. As they did, they respected each other, liked each other, and fell back in love.
I took that as a testimony to God’s intentional means of creating her brother to be special - He had a plan and purpose where humans saw problems.
There is a child on my bus route who also has Downs. He is maybe in his early teens and always smiling – the stench, the cramped bodies and the constant delays don’t seem to bother him. He entertains himself and is delighted by the view his window offers, and he is one of very few who isn’t preying for a seat.
As individuals who face obstacles every day, who are easy prey for jokes and abuse, and who bravely negotiate a world that has been made so convenient for the rest of us, let’s not make naïve assumptions.
The Myers-Briggs test has told me for years I am an “ESFJ” – the “J” standing for “judging”. If I am more, aren’t others simply less of the same? We eye strangers, box them into caste, class, religion, education, and income group that we then use to determine how we deal with them. If we interact we are constantly calculating and attempting to further our agenda. Call me a pessimist, but we act in self-interest and when we don’t, it’s something to be noted and praised – precisely because it is a rarity.
The children and adults I have come across who live with Downs or Autism or other such cases seem to be more “pure” - remember Shah Rukh Khan’s innocence and perseverance in My Name is Khan?
If you are still a skeptic, consider some of the world’s most celebrated historical figures – brilliant scientists, prolific writers and those who were described as “ahead of their times”. Many whom we admire today, faced humiliation and were ostracized in their times. Ludwig van Beethoven, Jim Morrison, Winston Churchill and Virginia Woolf, whom we look up to as historical giants lived with bipolar disorder. What’s more, even the famous people of today – take Drew Barrymore or Jim Carey, our Hollywood sweethearts, they have spoken about their Depression in the past. It takes being “special” to be special – this time without the quotation.
When we call a girl laati it may be an endearing means to refer to her innocence or it may be an insult to her intellect. For those of you that recall the protagonists of A Beautiful Mind and Rain Man –their minds were indeed gorgeous, but they were what mainstream society considered oddities. In the former 1988 blockbuster Raymond Babbit is an autistic man with amazing apt for calculation. In the latter 2001 hit John Nash is a brilliant mathematician with schizophrenia
As individuals who face obstacles every day, who are easy prey for jokes and abuse, and who bravely negotiate a world that has been made so convenient for the rest of us, let’s not make naïve assumptions. To mock them for being different it is to have a total disregard for the special talents, skills and characteristics which are direct variants of that difference. Indeed, there is so much to learn and appreciate from such truly special individuals.
sradda.thapa@gmail.com
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