The light in his heart

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Chandra Babu answered the very wrong query with a guileless laugh. “No, seeing places is not the reason why I travel. They are mostly official. But I take pleasure in travelling alone,” he says, smiling in the direction of the voice that greets him. He has been a teacher for more than twenty years and a fighter all his life. Condoning hurts, intentional and otherwise, has become a habit for K R Chandra Babu; Just as he reconciled with the blindness that lay in wait for him in his eleventh year, before he had even seen all of the little village of Pothencode where he was born.When we met him in the city, Chandra Babu only mentioned the 2010 state award for differently abled government employees  as a means to voice the larger concerns of a community. Holding the award more as a premise from where he could address the handicaps of the system, Chandra Babu sought the attention of the authorities to the namesake promises made on the International Day of Persons with Disabilities which falls on December 3.“The award will be handed over on December 3 at the Attakkulangara government School as part of the observance of the Day. As always, a few sports and arts competitions  will be held and food  packets distributed. But, it is high time that the authorities opened their eyes to the issues faced by differently abled people on a day-to-day basis. Things have to go beyond the namesake observance of the day,” says Chandra Babu.Apart from being a beloved teacher to the students of Ayirooppara Government Higher Secondary School, Pothencode, Chandra Babu is also a front row activist who campaigns for the rights of differently abled persons.  He is a member of many welfare associations for the differently abled and regularly corresponds with government and quasi-government authorities on behalf of persons with physical challenges. In fact, Chandra Babu has opened an office next to his home in Ayirooppara for carrying out the official work in a systematic manner. His cousin, Priyadarsini, who lives close by with her husband and two children, assists Chandra Babu in carrying out the paper works.“I have always been in awe of his enthusiasm and perseverance,” says Priyadarsini. “Until he was 11 years old, Babu was only partially blind and was attending a regular school. But even after he became completely blind and had to shift to a special school, Babu always stood first in his class and was the topper among differently abled students in the SSLC examination . After that, he did all his studies in mainstream institutions,” she remembers.Chandra Babu is a trained mridangam artist and accompanies Carnatic vocalists on stage. He has also won numerous prizes at youth festivals during school and college days and was the recipient of Sangeet Natak Akademi fellowship. He taught mridangam to students at his home until recently when official duties started keeping him too busy. “I have had bitter experiences too, as when some parents and colleagues alleged that I was unfit to be a teacher. They would accommodate me as a music teacher, but not as a teacher of Malayalam, though I hold a post graduation and have qualified the UGC test. There are specific spaces that society has earmarked for differently abled persons. It is not easy to get round those taboos,” he says.“I have travelled alone as far as New Delhi. But, it is not at all easy for differently abled persons to be travelling and managing things on their own. The Disabilities Act of 1996 has made numerous recommendations which have hardly ever been implemented. The integrated education system is good. But, the teachers are not trained well enough to attend to the special needs of differently-abled students,” he says.Chandra Babu is married to Sreeja and the couple has a daughter, Nila S Chandra who is in the sixth standard in Kendriya Vidyala, Pallipuram. “She has the God-given gift of good health. I remind her to be thankful of the blessings and make the most of the good life she has been given. I don’t know how much it does she understand,” Chandra Babu says smiling to himself.