The day started like any other day, with me sulking at the alarm, rummaging the refrigerator for breakfast cereals and staring at my wardrobe and sighing "I don’t have enough"!
At office none was there to greet me except the monotonous-boring-recorded 'thank you' from the punching machine. As always, I am the first to reach. Newspapers are getting bored by the day, gave them a quick glance and called JK, just to nag – I know when I replaced the receiver, he was fuming at the other side. For asking him to "call the real estate dealer ASAP". It seems he has work, I too have and I am working too! Hmm…. No comments on it.
First assignment is at 10 am, went upstairs and placed a request (read:begged) to the representative from the Arabic team to give me a ride to the venue. I hate this. Still, I will have to stick to this beg-n-go strategy till I get a car, no! the driving license!
When we reached the venue, the only thing I had in my mind was – 'yuck, yet another boring assignment'. The Arabic guy fled the venue saying 'hey, guess they are not gonna talk in Arabic, you be here and just give me a ring when your part is done." How sweet! Love ya buddy!
I was the first one to reach there and they took me to a conference room and left, leaving me alone. It is 5 minutes, 10 minutes and no sign of others. Moreover, the streaks of innocent laughter from the room nearby is giving the temptation to get up and check out what it is all about..
I got up, approached the door, knocked… silence…. Knocked again… silence.. knocked again… "YES" came a voice.
I entered the room… and my eyes could hardly believe what it is witnessing! Looking at me were nearly 50 angels, dressed in white and all smiling. One of them came forward and graciously took me to the chair in the middle of the room and made me sit. I stared at them, not knowing what is happening around me, not able to understand how I reached heaven straight from this desert box!
"Teacher, I like your bag," said one of the angels pointing at my brilliant violet tote bag. Did the angel say teacher??? Slowly things came to in focus and I saw the shades of alphabets, I saw the schoolbags, and yes I saw the students! But no ordinary school this. Nowhere can you find such innocence and I felt a rush of joy within me, said a silent thanks to Lord for taking me to where I am now.
Moments that followed where something I love to cherish in my memories…. I laughed with them, played with them, finally when the organizers called me for the conference; I said a half-hearted bye and promised them 'will be back soon' and left.
The above state of trance happened at the center for children with special needs here. It is a school (no! heaven) for children with Down Syndrome – the disorder caused by one extra chromosome! People with this disorder exhibit lower than average cognitive ability and sometimes severe or profound mental disability.
But the innocent smile on their faces, the innocent way of their behavior, and the innocent way they hugged me when I said 'bye', is something you cannot expect from a non-disabled children (one of the mother recommended that one should not use 'normal' to refer children without disabilities – "my child is not abnormal, so no one can make a 'normal'-'abnormal' comparison".
She is right, these kids are not abnormal, they are angels from heaven, who are on earth, just because they don’t have wings!
