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“I like playing and dancing more than studying. I really enjoy the songs we sing in church”

His gap-toothed, dimple-cheeked smile is rarely absent from his face. Abhash Minj (10) from Sippighat in the Andamans is always humming a tune and keeps the whole house happy with his laughter, says his mother Ansosna Kerketta (41). Such a contrast with the tension-filled months she underwent during his birth. Abhash, who has that extra chromosome that gave him Down Syndrome, was born in the sixth month. He was in the NICU for two months and when his intestines developed complications the doctors operated on him when he was just three months old.
 
Ansosna, a native of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, studied till Grade 12. Her father was a government officer. She got married at 22 to Kuldeep Minj, who works in the police department, and they have an older son, Abhay, who is now in Grade 12. Kuldeep works long hours and frequently gets transferred to other places, so she remains the primary caregiver, but she is able to cope because, as she says, “My family has always supported me.” They stay in the police quarters to which they moved three years ago.
 
Abhash cannot talk but expresses himself through actions. “I didn’t want to put him in a government school because I was afraid he would be bullied and the teachers might not pay him enough attention,” says his mother. In the hope that a private school would have a more inclusive atmosphere, with considerate teachers and pupils who would accept a child with a disability, she admitted him in the Ananda Marga primary school in nearby Bhathu Basti. It proved to be a good decision.
 
Abhash, now in Grade 5, gets along well with his classmates. “He likes them all and they are nice to him,” Ansosna says. “The teacher makes him sit next to her in class. For exams, the teachers give me the questions and I teach him. They also guide his hand when he has to write the answers.” However, he isn’t too fond of studying and would rather spend his time playing, singing, dancing, and roaming around. He also plays with kids in the neighbourhood; his best friend is Avyaan.
 
“He doesn’t trouble us at all although he sometimes becomes hyperactive,” says his mother. “He is mischievous too!” Abhay, who tells us geography is his favourite subject in school, says he communicates with Abhash through gestures. “I am very fond of my brother,” he adds. He hopes to follow in his father’s footsteps and become a police officer. Ansosna wishes Abhay would get a good job and look after his brother when she and her husband are no more.
 
Like most kids Abhash makes a fuss when he has to eat his veggies, and his mother has to feed him, but give him fish or chicken and he happily eats on his own! “He likes going to church every Sunday for prayers. He loves the songs we sing in church,” says Ansosna. “He is always humming some music or the other.”
 
In the same quarters, on the floor above them, another family with a disabled child resides. “Eleanor moved in two years ago. Her husband Edwin is in the police department as well,” Ansosna says. “Our kids are friends too.” Watch out for the story of Edwin and Eleanor’s son, Elation Sultan…