{
    "componentChunkName": "component---src-pages-inclusive-stories-js",
    "path": "/inclusive-stories/axay-kumar",
    "result": {"pageContext":{"language":"en","pathURL":"axay-kumar","isDefaultLanguage":true,"storyData":{"Name":"Axay Kumar","Alt_Photos":null,"Alt_Text_Photo1":"Axay Kumar (16) sits next to his grandmother on a bench made out of a wooden slab resting on two large wooden blocks. He has closely cropped hair combed forward towards his forehead. He wears navy blue track pants paired with a full-sleeved shirt in a chequered pattern of rust-red, white and black. He is smiling as his grandmother Keshaliben (71) turns to place her left hand on top of his head. Keshaliben wears a half-sleeved, round-necked cotton nighty in a red and white design. Draped over her head and shoulders is a dupatta in a tie-and-dye design of red, white and orangish-brown. The floor is plain grey cement and a low cement wall runs the length of the space. The bench touches the wall.","Alt_Text_Photo2":"Axay, wearing a blood-red half-sleeved knitted shirt and tight black pants, sits on his haunches in a long room with a plain grey cement floor. He looks straight into the camera. The left wall is plastered with coffee-brown mud and the right wall is made of exposed chocolate-brown brick. A few feet from his right foot there are a winnow and a round-bottomed shallow basket both made of beige woven bamboo cane.","Alt_Text_Photo3":"Axay sits outdoors in a coffee-brown plastic chair on beige sandy ground. He wears navy blue track pants and a long-sleeved knitted cotton shirt with a close neck. The greyish-white shirt has a broad chocolate-brown band across the chest printed with the word ARMANI in greyish-white letters. There is a similar band around the arm in the middle of each sleeve and the cuffs also are chocolate brown. There is a sapphire blue and white tractor in the background next to a house with walls of exposed pinkish-red brick and a sloping roof.","Alt_Text_Photo4":"Axay sits on the side of a string cot with feet touching the ground in a dimly lit room. The brown wooden cot is woven with strips of broad white fabric with thin brown lines. He wears tight black pants and a full-sleeved shirt in a pattern of coffee-brown checks on a white background. The mud floor is coffee-brown and the walls are of exposed brick. Surrounding the cot and towering over it there are huge, round, beige, woven cane jars meant for storing grain and pulses. There are three in the background and two on the right side.","Alt_Text_Photo5":"Axay poses with his family in a room with a brown mosaic-tile floor and whitewashed walls. They sit barefoot in a row on light brown wooden sofas covered with protective rectangles of cloth in a decorative pattern of mocha brown and white. From left to right: Axay’s father Bhimsinghbhai Vestabhai (45), Axay, his mother Manjulaben (40) and grandmother Keshaliben. Bhimsingh wears navy blue pants and a pale brown half-sleeved knitted shirt. He has a stubbly white beard, thin salt-and-pepper moustache, and a close crop with a receding hairline. Axay wears his black pants and brown-and-white checked shirt. He is smiling as he looks down at a soft toy he holds in his lap. The stuffed toy is a squirrel with pale orange fur, white chest, red nose and mouth, and a thick, furry tail. Manjulaben wears a mocha-brown nighty and a dupatta wrapped over her head and shoulders. The dupatta has a tie-and-dye pattern of black, leaf-green and white. The three of them occupy a double sofa. Keshaliben sits in a single sofa. She wears her red and white nighty and tie-and-dye dupatta. A clothesline is strung across the wall behind them. There are several colourful saris folded and draped over the line. Also draped over the clothesline there are a dark green T-shirt, a smoke-grey sweatshirt, and a shawl in tartan checks of indigo, smoky-grey and light red.","Alt_Text_Video":null,"Photo1_URL":"https://egsweb.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/Axay_Kumar/_O2A7400.jpg","Photo2_URL":"https://egsweb.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/Axay_Kumar/_O2A7578.jpg","Photo3_URL":"https://egsweb.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/Axay_Kumar/_O2A7325.jpg","Photo4_URL":"https://egsweb.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/Axay_Kumar/_O2A7468.jpg","Photo5_URL":"https://egsweb.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/Axay_Kumar/_O2A7570.jpg","Name_English":"Axay Kumar","Language":"en","Disability":["recqkJ0sfTCGlqJlR"],"Gender":"Male","Instagram_Content":"If a child can hear but doesn’t speak, an urban middle class parent would automatically search for the phone numbers of speech therapists in town. But what if the child is born to daily-wage agricultural workers with no formal education, belonging to the Rathwa tribe in Gujarat’s Chhota Udaipur, living in Dhandhoda, a village with a population of around 3000?\n\nBhimsinghbhai (45) and Manjulaben (40) had their second son Axay Kumar roughly 16 years ago. We managed to get a little information about Axay through his cousin Mehul who works in the Zilla Panchayat office. He told us the boy was diagnosed with an intellectual disability at SSG Sir Sayajirao General Hospital in Vadodara. Manjula takes care of his basic daily needs such as feeding, bathing and dressing him.\n\nKulsing Chuniya, a special educator in the aided, private, co-ed, Gujarati-medium Shri PL Makwana Sarvajanik High School, who took Vicky Roy around to capture Axay and other children with disabilities in the region, told us Axay has joined Class 9 in this school. Since he obviously won’t be able to manage sitting through a whole day in school without his mother or an attender, Kulsing visits him twice a week in his home. “Axay is now able to wear his clothes but sometimes the buttons don’t match the hole,” he informed us. “He can brush his teeth too but needs helps with putting paste on it.” According to Mehul, “Axay smiles when he is happy but cannot communicate anything else and therefore has no friends and plays no games.”\n\nWe wonder what goes on in Axay’s brain, for surely it must be ticking, though at a different pace than the rest of us.","Quote":"“My mother looks after me and feeds me. I have no speech and therefore no friends”","Status":"Published","Video":null,"Website_Content":"If a child can hear but doesn’t speak, an urban middle class parent would automatically search for the phone numbers of speech therapists in town. But what if the child is born to daily-wage agricultural workers belonging to the Rathwa tribe in Gujarat’s Chhota Udaipur, living in Dhandhoda, a village with a population of a little over 3000?\n \nBhimsinghbhai (45) and Manjulaben (40) already had a son, Parsingbhai, when their second son Axay Kumar was born roughly 16 years ago. The couple, who have had no formal education whatsoever, couldn’t even tell our interviewer Axay’s date of birth. We managed to gather a little information about Axay through his cousin Mehul who works in the Zilla Panchayat office.\n \nWhen Bhimsingh and Manjula realised Axay could not speak and had problems with movement as well, they had no idea what to do. Mehul said the boy was diagnosed with an intellectual disability at a government hospital, the SSG Sir Sayajirao General Hospital in Vadodara. He appears to have a locomotor disability as well, for Manjula continues to take care of his basic daily needs such as feeding, bathing and dressing him. Axay’s grandmother Keshaliben (71) is the only other occupant of their house. They seem to have given up on the boy since he is “unable to speak or understand”.\n \nKulsing Chuniya, a special educator in the aided, private, Gujarati-medium, co-ed school, Shri PL Makwana Sarvajanik High School, who took Vicky Roy around to capture Axay and other children with disabilities in the region, told us Axay has joined Class 9 in this school. Since he obviously won’t be able to manage sitting through a whole day in school without his mother or an attender, Kulsing visits him twice a week in his home. \n \n“Axay is now able to wear his clothes but sometimes the buttons don’t match the hole,” Kulsing informed us. “He can brush his teeth too but needs helps with putting paste on it.” According to Mehul, “Axay smiles when he is happy but cannot communicate anything else and therefore has no friends and plays no games.”\n \nWe wonder what goes on in Axay’s brain, for surely it must be ticking, though at a different pace than the rest of us.\n","State_name":"Gujarat","Display_Order":272}}},
    "staticQueryHashes": []}