Love, Growth and Autism

My darling child, You are more More than your labels Autistic, neurodivergent, special You are more More than your “episodes” Meltdowns, tantrums, resistance You are more More than your skills Numbers, alphabets, rhymes You are more More than your deficits Communication, regulation, socialisation You are more More than your behaviours Scratching, biting, hurting You are more More than your milestones Walking, talking, schooling My darling child, You will be more More than your number of friends Many, some, none You will be more More than your marks Below, above, average You will be more More than your career Engineer, artist, social worker You will be more More than your relationships Single, married, divorced You will be more More than your tags Extrovert, introvert, ambivert. You will be more More than your possessions Car, house, nothing My darling child, You are A living, breathing, ever growing being You are A soul, a person, an individual You are A mind, a body, a heart You are I...

  When I was little, maybe around 7 years old, I used to help my brother learn his poems. In my way of helping, I would do all the actions for him, make sure he learns every single line and do it exactly the way I want to. When I would ask him how it went, did he do all the actions, he used to say he could barely remember the poem, forget about the actions, and laugh. I wouldn’t find it funny back then. I used to get furious, that after all the time and energy I spent teaching him, how could he forget. When I was around 10-11, a very close friend of mine scored poorly in maths. I was quite good at maths, so I took it upon myself to “help” her. I started tutoring her in our free periods. But I was too strict. I demanded too much. I didn’t create much space for her to make errors. I would give her practice questions, on top of the existing homework that both of us would already have. I would give some credit to myself for taking out the time to draft those questions, that's how badly...

  Ok, so here is how it's going to go today. We are going to talk about two seemingly related concepts, make space, and take space. We are going to talk about them individually first, and then bring it all together at the end. What is the point, you ask? Well you will have to take this bumpy ride of thoughts with me. So fasten your seatbelts, and as my kid says, come on let's go.  Make space Ever since I was a child, I was good at making space. I am almost tempted to say it came to me naturally, but I think it had a lot to do with my upbringing. I grew up in a typical Indian household. We were 6 people, me and my brother, my parents, and my grandparents on my father’s side. During vacations, my father’s elder brother and his family would come and stay with us. My father’s sister moved a few houses away from us when I was pretty young, becoming my mother’s brother and his family’s next door neighbor. I hope you get the gist. I grew up in a swarm of relatives, people connected b...

  When I was a child, if ever me and my brother would get ravenously hungry, my dadi (grandma) would lovingly say, “Badhte bache h, khane do” (They are growing kids, let them eat). I always thought that you are supposed to grow up to a certain age, in my head it was 21, and by then you are supposed to learn everything that there is to learn, and then you live. For whatever reason, I always looked at it as a sequence. First, you learn (theory), then you live (practical). I ventured into my 20s with this same thought process, thinking I am at the very end of my theory now, and I will start my practicals soon. I will start working, get married, have kids, buy stuff like a house, a car etc etc. But I have learnt almost everything that I need to. When I stepped into motherhood, I carried over the same notion of “I should know everything there is to know before I start”. But motherhood has humbled me. Motherhood has taken all of my preconceived notions and tumbled them inside out. One of...

So imagine this, just for the sake of the argument. You wake up in this world for the very first time, as an adult. You are hungry, so you step outside to grab food. You are starving, so you go to the nearest place where you can get something. Once you eat, you feel satisfied and go back home.   You wake up the next day, and to your surprise, find yourself starving again. That’s when you realise that eating once is not going to cut it for the rest of your life. You need food for survival on a regular basis. So you head out once again to eat.   Day after day, you wake up, find yourself starving, rush to the nearest place where you can find anything edible, because it is a question of your survival. If you don’t eat, you will die. You do not have the privilege right now to access the nutritional aspect of your meal.   One day someone mentions to you that you can keep some snacks at home, so that you don’t have to rush out of the door every morning simply to survive. It’s a ...

  Hi there, I am Mansi. Welcome to my tiny, little corner on the internet. I don’t know how you quite got here, but I am glad that you did.  Whenever I start reading someone’s work, especially someone new, I often have to stop midway and read about them first. I feel like I understand and absorb their knowledge much better when I have the slightest bit of understanding of who they are. So, in that spirit, let me introduce myself.  Ah! Introductions are hard for me, always have been. For one, I struggle with keeping things brief 😅. I struggle with what parts to keep and what to skip. You see, I believe we all are these big, bulky books, maybe even a sequence of books, like Harry Potter or Lord of the rings etc, and it is so hard to summarize it in less than 500 words. But over the years, I have come up with a system. I keep only the most, most basic. And I let everything else be a mystery. A mystery you are more than welcome to uncover, if only you have the luxury of time...