Adman Anurag Hira judges one of the Abilympics events. Picture by Anindya Shankar Ray

Wheelchair-bound Dipak Ghosh cannot use his hands because of cerebral palsy. But that doesn’t stop him from writing, sketching and working on his computer. He uses his legs instead. He was in Class IV when his writer had been late during an examination and he could not complete his test.

“I decided not to depend on others and began learning how to write with my legs,” says the youngster, who won the second prize in web design at the third Eastern Regional Abilympics Meet, held at Indian Institute of Cerebral Palsy (IICP), Taratala, from March 18 to 20. The accountancy student from Netaji Open University now plans to do an MCA.

The meet, a contest of vocational skills for people with disabilities, brought together 217 participants from six states, including Assam, Bihar and Meghalaya. “The word Abilympics is a combination of the words ‘ability’ and ‘Olympics’. It aims to create awareness in the government and corporate sector about disability. We hope that this will give them an opportunity to achieve economic independence,” explained Shubhra Chatterjee, the head of communications, IICP.

Aged 15 years and above, the participants competed in 32 categories, including basket, jewellery and furniture making, wood carving, block printing and painting. For some, like deaf and mute Abhay Maharna from Orissa, it was also about portraying their own predicament.

He drew a park where children, supporting themselves on crutches or trundling along in wheelchairs, congregate. “That is the reality that I see around me,” he feels.

The winners of the regional meet will participate in the national finals, to be held at New Delhi later this year. The first international Abilympics was held in Japan in 1981. India first participated in the August 2000 meet at Prague. The winners from the national level will head to the international meet in Korea in 2010.

Jhinuk Mazumdar

What’s on your mind this week

SHOUT OUT LOUD

Stray carers stare at cash crunch

As a lover of stray animals, I’m often seen in my neighbourhood chasing street dogs with vile medical concoctions that they refuse to stomach willingly.

It all began when I picked up two abandoned stray kittens from a garbage dump near Gariahat, in south Calcutta, a few years ago. I met Indrani Laha of the NGO Friends of Dogs while looking for a facility to get them spayed. By this time, the CMC had already taken away the space it had allotted to their 10-year-old clinic at Entally. They were operating from the houses of accommodating animal lovers.

One such house is at Jodhpur Park, where the NGO used the courtyard as an operating space and constructed four kennels outside. The arrangements were rudimentary. Yet, battling an acute shortage of funds, they managed, week after week, to sterilise, vaccinate and treat dogs and cats, often using emergency lamps and candles during power cuts. The results are for everyone to see. In Lake Gardens and Jodhpur Park, most female stray dogs have been spayed, as indicated by a small cut on their ears.

One of the first dogs I got spayed was an old lady, Buri. Weakened by the constant birth and rearing of puppies, she had developed a complicated nervous disease after her operation and was paralysed. Several expensive vets could not identify the cause. It was Indrani who was successful. She took Buri away and nursed her back to health, even preventing the inevitable bedsores from lying down all the time.

Indrani has taught me the basic cures for common canine and feline maladies. The NGO has also helped in spaying the eight dogs in my locality, Golf Gardens. Unfortunately, because of lack of funds, they have stopped operating since February. The future looks tough for the many strays and their carers, who had come to rely on the NGO.

Madhura Chakraborty,

English, Jadavpur University

THE DIARY

Lightning

From the womb of nature,

She arrives,

A deep, dark cloud

With a dazzling glare.

Her divine glance,

The flash of light,

She kindles

The lonely soul of the sky.

A message is blazing in each eye: the hint of

tomorrow’s stormy sight?

Announcing truth’s unbeatable might,

She enlivens my soul;

Making me realise my sacred goal:

To plant the seed of dawn tonight.

To perform my holy, truthful task:

To unveil the sinners’ disgraceful mask;

Awaken the nation’s frigid career.

Shuvra Sen, IGNOU

 

Dilettante’s desire

Never did I think of dying alone!

Never again shall my breath be borne

Glimpsing into the deserted chamber

Not me but remnants soaked in amber

Perhaps a sigh your breath will spill

Perhaps you’ll trample some restaurant bill

Time, equipped with sickle and blade

Hastily mends the heart that bled.

In forgetful remembrances of the past

Rusted passion makes love to dust!

Swagata Basu