A SLAP that changed the way I look at Life.
Hi Guys, I am Diya & this is my story!
During my vacation after my 8th-grade final exams, my twin sister and I decided to volunteer at “SAVE CHILDREN INDIA” a school for the deaf, dumb and mentally disabled at Bandra, Mumbai. We were supposed to teach the students over there Quilling and Madhubani art.
We volunteered there for three days, and those three days were the best of my life. I felt great that I could be of some help to the students there. I was appointed to a class where the students were above 18 years of age and had some mental disability.
“On my first day as a volunteer, I felt honored to wear a volunteer badge”
I entered the school feeling a little bit nervous as I was to face new people. I was a little scared in the beginning, as I entered the class, a student said Namaste to me. They had been taught to greet newcomers that way. It was a difficult task to communicate with everyone because if they did not get an immediate reply then they would continuously repeat what they wanted to say or they would start shouting.
Every morning, all the students assembled together did their prayers and then went to their respective classrooms. I went to the class where I was appointed as a volunteer. The teacher there asked the students to introduce themselves. They excitedly told us their names and then we proceeded to say ours. Even though they were older than us, they were asked to call us ‘didi’. We did not teach them any academic subject, we taught them how to do quilling art, Madhubani art, paper wet art and how to draw or color using paints. Teaching them required a lot of patience because each thing was supposed to be repeated multiple times for them to understand it clearly.
There were times where I felt thankful and loved as well as times that were hard.
“The hardest time was when one of those students was irritated with me and slapped me on my face but I tried to be patient because it wasn’t her fault”
It was due to her disability that she did something like that. I tried to gain her trust by making her understand the activity again. When she finally understood it, I had a huge smile on my face as my patience had won over other emotions.
“That day I realized how to be calm and understand things from the perspective of others”
There was another time when I was successful in teaching Madhubani art to the most mischievous student of that class. He was very restless and would never complete his work. However, I told him that I would give him a chocolate if he completed his work and he did! After he completed his work I gave him the chocolate and there was a big grin on his face as he had achieved a chocolate. There was a big grin on my face as I was proud of him that he had finally learned how to complete his work himself.
In the end, I was thankful for being there because even though I was scared at first but when I got to know the students better, I realized that they were as friendly as you and me.
I had an enjoyable experience teaching them. I am very glad that I could help them in some way or other and they, in return had taught me some important lessons for a lifetime!
This sure was a Slap that changed Diya’s outlook towards life! Today we are glad to see how patient and understanding she has become. There might still be a long way to go but she is definitely closer to her goal.
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