CHENNAI: On Christmas, Vishal Anand, a 10 -year-old autistic boy, had the entire audience of a packed hall smiling and completely awestruck. It was the release of Vishal’s music CD titled Smaranam, for which he had penned devotional lyrics and suggested ragas. The CD has songs in different languages, composed and rendered by various artistes. Launching the CD, Gita Srikanth, founder of We Challenge Autism Now (We CAN), pointed out that many children like Vishal were waiting to get an opportunity to exhibit their talent. “These children are often left with no one to help them express themselves. Often we are just left with presumptions about what they want to say,” she said. She pointed out that normal children were being straitjacketed into an education system, in which many were unable to express themselves.
The songs were set to tune by Gomathi Narayanan and rendered by S Vidyalakshmi and Vidyalakshmi Madan. Vishal has also authored a book Meadow of Moods on science and another on Jumbo’s Bag words and Phrases.