Manju Jaidka
Former Professor and Dean, Faculty of Liberal Arts, Shoolini University, Solan, HP
Former Professor and Chairperson, Dept of English, Panjab University, published writer, academician with international linkages. Former Chairperson of Chandigarh Sahitya Akademi.
Phone: +919814701152
Address: Chandigarh
Former Professor and Chairperson, Dept of English, Panjab University, published writer, academician with international linkages. Former Chairperson of Chandigarh Sahitya Akademi.
Phone: +919814701152
Address: Chandigarh
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SYNOPSIS
THE NEXT MILESTONE: A MOTHER’S JOURNAL
This book is about Raju, a child not born with the ‘normal’ faculties we take for granted: the ability to walk and talk, to see, to speak and hear, to go out into the wide world and live independently. He is the child of a lesser God. Was he created at a time when the benevolent powers that control the cosmos were in abeyance? Or when they simply decided to put the endurance of the human strength to test? How much, after all, would it take to break the indomitable human spirit?
This is a first-person account: as the mother of a ‘special’ child the author wishes to reach out to other such mothers, telling them they are not alone, that there are countless others like them who carry on the same struggle with shades of difference, for each ‘special’ child is unique, has a different set of hurdles and challenges, and needs to be handled differently. Special, differently-abled, challenged, or handicapped: all these terms eventually point to the same not-so fortunate child who inches forward at his own pace, painfully crawling towards the milestones dotting a long road that stretches into forever.
Parenting a child like Raju, one is often buffeted in a gamut of emotions, conflicting, contradictory, paradoxical feelings, teetering between despair and hope, between euphoria and melancholia, between victimhood and martyr-hood. “Why me?” “Why my child?” “What did I ever do to deserve this?” Such are the questions that torture the parent time and again, questions irrelevant because there is no answer for them. The only solution, as The Next Milestone points out, is acceptance with grace. A child with disability is one who has a difficult road ahead and needs a lifetime of unconditional love and support.