बब्बूची बडबड (Babbuchi BaDBaD)

आज एका पालकांशी त्यांच्या तरुण मुलाच्या मानसिक स्वास्थ्य विषयावर बोलण्याचा योग आला. गेली चार वर्षे कमी अधिक फरकाने मुलाचे मानसिक स्वास्थ्य अधून मधून बिघडताना जाणवत होते. एकटेपणा वाटणे, समोर उद्दिष्ट न दिसणे, कंटाळवाणे वाटणे, कशातही आनंदी न वाटणे, या विचारांनी डोकं बधिर होणे, उदास वाटणे, या सगळ्याबद्दल स्वतःला अपराधी मानणे अशा तक्रारी तो मला अधून मधून सांगत असे. या सगळ्यात पॅटर्न दिसायला लागल्यावर मी त्याला समुपदेशिकेकडेही जायला सांगितले. पण तेही त्याने नंतर बंद केले. गेल्या काही दिवसात त्रास वाढायला लागल्यावर मात्र त्याने घरी सांगितले पाहिजे याबद्दल मी आग्रह धरला. "घरचे काय म्हणतील", "ते काय मदत करू शकतील", "उलट मलाच दोष देतील" या विचारांनी तो घरी सांगायला तयार होईना. "तुझे पालक आहेत ते; समजावून सांगितलं तर नक्की समजावून घेतील; त्यांना संधी तर दे," असं सांगून त्याला तयार केलं. पण बोलायचं कसं हा प्रश्न त्याच्यासमोर होता. प्रत्यक्ष बोलणं जड जाणार असेल तर कोणाच्या तरी माध्यमातून बोल किंवा पत्र लिही असं सुचवलं. त्यानुसार त्याने एक whatsapp संदेश तयार...

Shocked by the title? Or maybe excited? Maybe you are thinking that I have gone crazy to talk about 'this' thing. Maybe, you will be disappointed with what I am going to write. In any case, since you are already here, do read till the end. Read because this is a true story about someone's private life and not-so-private life. In October 2014, I met a person with a beautiful voice. She sang a melodious Kannada bhajan. I and my friends sat around her to listen to her story, a story that was unheard of, a story which was not even close to our realities. She narrated 'her' story..a story of a transgender! Akkai is her name today but she was born as Jagadish. ...I was born as a male child, a child with male private parts. Born into an upper caste family and father serving in the Air Force, it was herculean to come out to them. My brother had married a Christian girl and was excommunicated. Then sister married a Dalit boy and was excommunicated too. At the tender ag...

C hildren are fun packages, full of energy, enthusiasm and curiosity. Every child I encounter is always a different composition altogether. Recently, I was part of a children's literature festival in Bengaluru. The venue was a place known as Makkala-Koota. Makkala in Kannada means children and Koota means a group. It was a park with swings and slides and ample open space where children could run as they want! Several tall, white tents were raised which looked just like the ones in the circus. On one side of these tents were book stalls which had hundreds of children's books and on another side was the main venue for the function. It was 10 o' clock in the morning. Soon the space got filled completely by children of different age groups. Happy faces all around. No other exquisite landscape in the world could probably match the beauty of this scene. (Photo courtesy - Gajula Praveen Kumar Naidu of APF) With great efforts, I found my way to the front through the...