During my morning walk in a village adjacent to the Madhepura Christina Hospital, this single corn head of millet on the road side caught my attention. It stood distinct and ready to be harvested. This plant standing at the edge of a regular rice field so engaged me that I took its photo. I could not discern at that time as to what was moving me or arousing an unusual interest within me about his corn head.
While walking further, it dawned on me that two days later, on November 14th, we would be completing forty years since ASHIRVAD, an Initiative for Child Development was formed in 1983.
I continued my walk recalling the significant events of the last forty years. For Anna and myself the last forty years were a season of exploring, engaging and experiencing a new depth to our sense of being and belonging. Many discoveries about childhood transitions, family formation process, child development of developmentally challenged children, home as the cradle of development for parents, promoting parenting as a vocation in family life, causal pathways of neuro-developmental departure of a child, and some stressors or threats in family life, helped ASHIRVAD to respond to some of the opportunities in small ways. So the history of forty years was a path finder in child development for us.
The ASHIRVAD Chid Development Centre at Chennai in 1983 was one of the few of such centres in India. The film which Mr Mani Ratnam produced in 1989, Anjali, after several visits to converse with us about the story line and the philosophy of our work, became a popular film to create awareness about the needs of developmentally challenged children and their families. The Developmental Paediatrics Unit at CMC Vellore established with a partnership with ASHIRVAD in 1997 was the first facility for this speciality in any medical college in India at that time, which went on to start post doctoral fellowship and PhD in this speciality. This helped to pioneer this specialty in India at the academic level.
As I kept walking with these thoughts, I came to a recently harvested paddy field. That is where I spotted the three birds, which are not regular visitors in the place where Anna and I live!
The ring collared pigeon and the spotted pigeons above, were in their flight stations, groomed and ready for the day.
The two Indian pied starlings (myna) caught my attention. They had found feed on the field.
While they continued feeding from the subsoil, they looked up in between to give their bird calls.
I wondered why they were giving out their long musical bird calls. Was it a joyful resonance of finding the feed! Was it an announcement to other birds inviting them to join in! Their bird calls included whistles, trills, and warbling calls. They bobbed their heads and fluffed their feathers in between, while facing each other, suggesting that they might be in their courtship phase. All the more reason to be giving such enticing bird calls! They were in a mood of sharing and announcing the joy of the morning!
That string of thoughts led me to return to a mood of gratefulness about the story of ASHIRVAD spread over forty years.
What I saw on the other side of the harvested field was acres of paddy ready for harvest. In the morning sunshine, the mist of the night added brilliance to the paddy. The white patches on the paddy field, which were noticeable here and there, caught my eye. What surprised me when I took the photos and observed was the cobwebs connecting the stems of the paddy. The cob web linked the stems of the paddy to give a cohesive look.
That sight condensed the amorphous and diffuse thoughts that Anna and I have had about the mission of ASHIRVAD now, after forty years of its formation. It occurs to us that we can be in the role of 'bridging the gap' between parents and children. The emotional distance between children and parents is widening because parents are occupied at work, children spend long hours watching the visual screen and children have reduced playful, social and interactive engagements. The pre-school readiness is a missing dimension for many children on account what children do not receive for their formative experience at home.
The COVID season gave us an opportunity to sense the recent changes taking place in family life, upbringing of children, parenting and pre-school readiness of children. There were some initiatives taken to respond with new programme to respond to these domains, while I was still working at the Medical College. Since my retirement in June 2023, the opportunity to connect with others who sense a vocation in child development is opening up. There are four institutions who feel that they want to explore ways to promote child development as a mission through what they do.
Anna and I feel that in many instances, there is a gap between husband and wife depriving them of intimacy in marital relationships. There is a gap between parents and pre-school children, thereby compromising the pre-school readiness. There is a gap in many homes between what pre-school children need and what they receive at home for child development.
As I was returning from the walk, I saw this child getting on to his bicycle and going on his way. He stopped to ask me about my camera. He studies in a local school in the second standard. His confidence, skill and interactiveness amazed me. That revealed a lot about his parents, the parenting practices and the ambience of the home.
I watched him cycling up and down the main road in the village. He stopped every time he met a familiar person, adult or child and had a conversation before resuming the cycling.
In the late afternoon I found this boy again on the same road, this time with his friends.
His friends also shared his effusiveness and childhood flavour of social and communicative enthusiasm.
On another time in the evening when I went out for shopping on the same day, I noticed him mending his cycle, while his friend gave him company.
I sense that he is an 'enabled child' from a home where parenting practices are favourable to his formation!
I keep thinking about a message that this child conveyed to me, while I was reflecting on this experience in the evening!
Think of parents, parenting practices and home, where bridges are needed to reduce the gaps that exist !
I wonder whether it is a missional call to ASHIRVAD in the coming
years!
After making a presentation at a counsellor's conclave recently, the feed back I received was, 'think of ways of making home a place of formation for parents and children and enriching their family life'!
ASHIRVAD enters its 41st year on November 14, 2023. To all those, who are Friends of ASHIRVAD, Anna and I offer floral greetings in gratitude and appreciation for their good wishes and support.
M.C.Mathew (text and photo)
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