Frafrotskies

The March 31st this year was very different for me.  Not because of numbers getting tallied on the Financial Year End day, but for what I experienced in the annual day celebrations of an NGO in Thiruvananthapuram.  The NGO is H2O (Helping Hands Organisation) and the event is named as "Fafrotsky-18".  Frafrotskies means 'Precipitation of objects from the sky that are not normally expected'.  About 40 children with special needs performed at "Fafrotsky-18", that included children with different kinds of intellectual disabilities including Autism, Cerebral Palsy, MR and Down Syndrome.

Two things that stood out; a) The way the volunteers were managing the children, and b) the way the leadership team of H2O, especially the founders Prasanth Nair and the Chief Executive Director Jolly Johnson, led from the front.  Each and every child from the schools / projects of H2O got opportunity to perform.  Some of them, quite a few times.  The enjoyment was obvious on the face and body language of quite a few children.  Few couldn't express happiness.  But we could feel it.  Skits to Mimicries to Dances...  Later came to know that the volunteers were students of CET (College of Engineering, Trivandrum), my alma mater.  Felt very happy to see that the students of today are getting involved in such activities. Kudos to them.

My daughter Pratibha and her Guru Smt Aparna Deodhar were honoured during the event by the Chief Guest Dr Beena IAS.  My daughter first presented Raag Hamsadhwani as solo. Later her guru on Sitar and myself on Bansuri joined Pratibha for a Jugalbandi in Raag Yaman.  Shaheen P Nazer accompanied on tabla exceptionally well.  It was not easy to accompany Pratibha on Tabla, as she drops attention once in a while and quickly catches up.  To be in sync with that is a challenge by itself.  Shaheen did it very well.  We thoroughly enjoyed peforming.  I am sure, the audience too enjoyed.  The objective was to inspire the parents of the children of the schools under H2O.  Hope, we met the objective. 

Once again Kudos to all the children participated, the volunteers for their exceptionally god job of supporting and taking care of the children, and the organisers for arranging the show.  Our sincere gratitude to the organisers for inviting Pratibha for the event. 

Yes, it was a milestone in Pratibha's music journey.  And we experienced Frafrotskies...

Here are few pics of the event.

Pratibha, Aparna Deodhar, Chief Guest Dr Beena IAS and Prasanth Nair

Chief Guest felicitating Pratibha

Chief Guest felicitating Guru Aparna Deodhar

Pratibha performing Solo. Shaheen on Tabla 

Jugalbandi... Shaheen, Aparna Deodhar, Pratibha and Myself

Dancing with mothers

Dancing with mother

Colourful Dance...

Cerebral Palsy couldn't beat their quest to dance...

Awesome singing..

Powerful drum beats.. Rhythmic too.. 

Part recording of Pratibha's performance

My Good Morning Messages of March

As indicated in one of my previous posts, I used to create Good Morning messages focussing persons with intellectual disabilities, their parents and volunteers working with them.  These messages are posted daily in a group of persons with special needs, parents, and volunteers.  Here are the messages created for the month of March.  

The copy on the messages are not mine, taken from different sources.  I did make changes to some of them.  I just created the cards, with relevant background and imagery, primarily to inspire people working with persons with special needs.  

I thoroughly enjoyed creating them.  I did miss 4 days; an improvement over 5 misses in the month of February.  

A celebration with a difference

Last week we celebrated my father's 90th Birthday.  We call it 'Navati' celebrations.  This is the first celebration we organised for my father in life.  We kept it very simple and informal.  We didn't have any decorations.  It was at our house, as it is.  We didn't follow any 'modern traditions' such as cake cutting, passing on a piece of cake in a dozen mouths, clapping and singing the most famous song etc.  I feel, such formal modern traditions make events very mechanical ones, and personal touch is lost.   Personally, I am very uncomfortable with those 'modern traditions'.

Me, my wife and my sisters did all the arrangements.  As my father loves and enjoys puja, we did a small puja at home.  Also, we invited few people whom we felt he would love to meet and talk to.  As his mobility outside is limited, we felt we will invite people home, who would love meeting him and speaking to him.  It was overwhelming to see his brother and nephew came with their wives came all the way from our village in Kerala. That touched us in general and him in particular.

Most people we invited came, had chat with my father and all of us, and had traditional snacks we arranged.  At the end of the day he was excited and felt very happy.  

All his Grand daughters came from distant places.  Grand sons couldn't make it, for which he felt a bit sad.   Most of our friends and relatives we invited came and we had a nice time with them. 

Our driver came up unexpectedly with a shawl and touched my father's feet. That touched all of us.   My father's eyes filled with tears.  

Overall, the day was very satisfying for my father and all of us. His energy levels were very high throughout the day.   Most people who came told us that it was very emotional and touching moments for them too.  Those words are enough for us for delight and satisfaction.

Here are few more pics.