The
greatest happiness that any teacher feels is when her students achieves success
in life. When the student is special with downs syndrome, the happiness is ten
fold.
Normally the
first reaction that the parents get when they get a special child with down syndrome is one of shock and confusion. They feel their
world has fallen apart, they are frightened for the future. But after few years,
they begin to understand their child and learn that children with down syndrome
are really very talented. If trained under special care, they are as capable of
leading a normal life as any other normal person, only a little bit slower and
may need supervision.
Aditi
Verma beat disability and became entrepreneur when her parents gifted her with
eatery on new year’s day last year.
On
my recent visit to school at CBD, Belapur, I decided to spend one afternoon at
Bhoomi Mall at CBD after school hours. Bhoomi mall is still new, with many
shops waiting to find its owner, but three floors upstairs is a small eatery
called ‘Aditi’s Corner’ that sells chocolates, drinks and snacks and is run by
Aditi Verma who has Down Syndrome.
“What
will you have?” She asks as soon as we settle on the chair outside the eatery.
I want to give her business so I ask her what on menu. The dish of the day is ‘Vegetarian
Briyani’
“Everyday
is different lunch” she explains. The food is cooked at home and the servings are just heated in microwave at the stall. There are many offices in this mall that patronise her café.
I
glance into her eatery and see chocolates, wafers, biscuits, Maggi packets,
soft drinks along with sandwiches. There is a small fridge in one corner, a
coffee and tea making machine on the other side. I am not really hungry and
cannot decide what to order.
“Will
you have corn pattice?” she offers. I order for one dish that I share with my
friend. The frozen corn pattice are removed from fridge and heated on hot grill
and served with tomato sauce and mint chutney. It tastes good. She has two
staff members, Sardar Paramjit who takes care of cooking at the café and Ram,
the delivery boy, who carries the deliveries to the offices in the mall.
She
sits down with us for a friendly chat and I am impressed. During her days at
our school at Swami Brahmamand Prathisthan, Maths was her favorite subject, and
she had won the ‘Best Student Award’ in 2010 for her overall performance.
Besides academics, Aditi loved dancing and dramatics and in an inter-school
competition in 2012, won the ‘Best Actress Award’
Phone
rings and she takes pen and jots down the order. Some one in the mall wants sandwiches and coffee. She repeats the order to her delivery boy and then turns her attention back to us and talks about
herself. At 6pm she will go home.
“Will
you go home alone? I ask
“Yes,
I will take autorickshaw” she says
She
is quite independent and confident. Aditi Verma has taken her initiative
further. She represented Maharastra as an entrepreneur in the Self Advocate
Forum of India (SAFI) at Bangaluru on December 9, 2016
“I
even gave a lecture on my initiative and my desire to expand it.” she has been
nominated as the State representative for SAFI
Later,
we go one floor down the mall to meet her father who owns an office in the same
building. He is one proud father who speak fondly of her achievements.
Hope
is re-kindled for other special children too.
