You know what is disgusting?

People think its their moral duty to sympathize with anyone who is not ordinary.
My younger sister is autistic.She was diagnosed border-line autistic at age four.
Autism is NOT a mental handicap.Although a huge revolution is going on, so as it be considered as one.Heh.

My sister will turn sixteen this July.At a time when my parents hardly knew what autism was, they were instructed by a concerned family friend to go and get her examined from a leading institute for neurosciences in Banglalore.That solved the mystery about why my sister was still not talking at age four, why she behaved strangely under particular circumstances.She was diagnosed border-line autistic and hyper-active.

Now, we, meaning our immediate family and also our extended family have no qualms whatsoever about the fact that she is abnormal.That she is likely to turn her head away if you ask her a question.Or the fact that she attends a special school.Or that she does not study in a particular class..as in say class 8 or class 9.Special schools do not have specific classes.Had she been normal, she would have given her class tenth boards this year.Apart from a few sighs and some random reflection on how life would have been if she hadn't been autistic, I have never really thought about it as a misfortune.My parents have taught me to take care of her.Even at age eight, I was bold enough to handle a hyper active kid all by myself.Not that anything has changed now,or will change in the future.My sister is intelligent, beautiful, funny,and adorable.(A lot more than I am).There is no reason why I should be less proud of her than I am.She is continuously being trained by us, as that is THE thing to do, there being no medicine for autism.


But what pains me,is the look that people give her when she is on the road, or say traveling by a public bus.Of course, she has some facial expressions, body language per se, that is sure to give away that she is not normal.The really illiterate people gawk,which is ok.But when a presumably educated, middle aged, also, decked up female, eyes her up and down, nudges her friend to look at the "paagol meye"(mad girl) standing in front of her in the bus, all I do is stare.Nothing can be done, if a twenty something guy sitting in the seat reserved for handicaps, in a bus , arches an eyebrow and asks "aami ki seat chhere debo, o ki oshustho"?(should I give her the seat, is she abnormal?).Why ask?.If you have to give her the seat just stand up, dont be a dumbfuck and ask.

Also, nothing can be done, when a girl of fourteen sitting in the table opposite ours, in a restaurant, quips in and shakes her mother's elbow.."arrey dekho dekho, lagta hai woh larki paagal hai".The mother, who was talking on her cell phone ,stops talking and turns our side, and blurts out "arrey ha, dekho na kaise kar rahi hai".All this, without the slightest hesitation about the fact that we are sitting one yard away and can HEAR them.Now, by this time the whole family has forgotten the food piled up in front of them and is busy observing my sister.We silently eat our food.

Even an insensible lot of marwaris hogging in a restaurant can be ignored.What cannot be ignored is when a rude neighbour who does not even smile back when greeted, visits our place during the pujas and brings along all her family members,and their kids.When my sister comes out of the room,they all stop doing whatever they were doing and start gaping at her.Suddenly one kid nudges his mother "o ma aamra ki ei paagol meyeta kei dekhte eshechhi?ei meyetai ki shey?"( is this the mad girl we have come to see?Is she the one?).


Sigh.All I can do is curse.