When he was diagnosed with autism at the age of three and the news was broken to his mother, she thought the doctor said her son was ‘artistic’. However, the word artistic turned prophetic for Krishna Narayanan (40), a published author of four books, who is penning his fifth tome. While the doctors in the US where he was raised said that his parents shouldn’t expect much from him, today Krishna has disproved every prediction that experts made about him. After training him in maths and physics, literature brought him closer to expressing himself. His mother Jalaja says, “Even today, his speech skills haven’t developed fully, but he has found his voice in writing.”
Starting his journey as an author almost a decade ago, Krishna’s tryst with words began when he was a small boy, getting exposed to a plethora of writers like Charles Dickens and Jane Austen. His mother Jalaja Narayanan, who decided to dedicate her time to her son, quitting a PhD midway, says that while Krishna cannot do many things that a normal person can, he has achieved what many normal people can only imagine. “He has four books (Wasted Talent, Musings of an Autistic; Quest, Search for a Quality Life; Tender Melody and Why Me? An Inward Odyssey) to his credit. Even established authors can only pen in one genre, whereas Krishna has written in different genres, including a love story. It also goes on to dispel the myth that people with autism don’t have emotions,” she says.
His mother recounts that they had to work on every small element that was taken for granted for a normal child. “We had to first create a structure for him every day, in order to engage him with what was happening around him. We had to then establish eye contact and start working on skills. Even in the US, in the mid 70s, there was very little awareness about autism. I only got discouragement from doctors and experts, they told me I can’t over bake a cake. But my son was not a cake, he was a human being. I told them they can’t pronounce such a ruthless sentence on a young boy. They could only diagnose and not offer any solid prognosis. I started my own intervention that combined Ayurveda and a schedule that I drew out for him everyday meticulously,” she says.
Probably one of the first persons with autism to pen a book, Krishna and his mother’s approach towards him was studied by experts at the UCLA. Approached for serving as a special educator, Jalaja, however, turned down the offer as she wanted to focus on her son.
Today, Krishna is working on his fifth book about emerging economy. His father Sundaram Narayanan says that economics is another interest that keeps him thoroughly engaged. Both Jalaja and Narayanan take immense pride in another work by their son that reinforces their faith in his creative strength. “His article on Vedanta and how it helped him endure autism was published in Sri Ramakrishna Math’s Vedanta Kesari. In their commemoration issue published last year, his article, ‘Enduring Autism Through Vedanta’, was selected and published among many other write ups by prominent people like Mahatma Gandhi, Sarojini Naidu and APJ Abdul Kalam. He had summarised the essence of Vedanta in six pages. Encapsulating the essence of any topic is his biggest strength,” they say.
World Autism Awareness Day
Piecing Princess
Puzzles don’t puzzle her. Rather, they keep her glued to them till she solves them. Aishwarya Sriram, who was diagnosed with autism when she was around four, discovered her ultimate calling when she was just 10. Today, THE 33-year-old has solved almost 160 jigsaw puzzles and sold many of them online and at shows across organisations. With spatial intelligence and amazing scanning power, Aishwarya needs absolutely no help from anyone for solving puzzles.
Her mother Girija Sriram, a trained special educator from the National Institute of Mental Health, explains how Aishwarya took to jigsaw puzzle, which is her passion today. “Once at her school, when her teacher accidentally dropped a puzzle set on the floor, Aishwarya put it together within minutes.
Later, when the teacher told me about the incident, we thought there might be something of great interest for her in puzzles. Slowly, she put together every type of puzzle we bought for her. Sometimes in minutes or hours, and the bigger ones in days, Aishwarya displayed a unique talent.
Trainers from Vidyasagar told us that we must display the stacks of puzzles that she had solved, at one of their events. Later, we had a show displaying the puzzles she had solved at CP Art Centre and she did a live demonstration of puzzle solving for visitors,” she says.
Adept at Photoshop, Aishwarya also has a collection of drawings of gods in abstract style. With an unfailing memory, Aishwarya records day-to-day happenings in a diary in Tamil. “She has a routine — getting up and doing some kitchen chores like cutting vegetables, exercising, attending music classes and then sometimes, solving puzzles on the computer.
While she follows it, it all depends on her mood. Sometimes, she wakes up in the middle of the night and talks about solving a puzzle,” she says.
Her father Sriram adds that one can get a glimpse of her mind. “In one of her diary entries, she has compared her routine of putting the cooker weight to body weight,” he says. Her mother adds, “It is amusing and witty, sometimes the entry has poignant moments and talks about pain. The diary says it all.”
Log onto aishyspuzzles.com to see the puzzles she has solved.
Colourful Journey
When you enter 21-year-old Teja’s house in Thiruvanmiyur, you know that you are in an artist’s house. With every nook and cranny adorned by his art work in various mediums, here is a passionate, young artist, who has already displayed his talent to the world. Diagnosed with autism at the age of eight, Teja, however, as his mother Rekha Supriya puts it, has been reversing the disorder in his own way. Happy to make friends and cheerful, Teja draws you into his world of drawing with his pleasant demeanour. “I am a big fan of my grandfather Bujjai (pen name), a renowned artist, and MF Husain,” he says with a big smile. He quickly runs you through his various escapades with colours and paper, and shows you his works that are neatly arranged in folders.
As his mother tells him to talk about his other work, he tells her excitedly that he will, after he narrating another interesting episode. Filled with bright colours and glimpses of everyday life, Teja associates the most with the commonplace and things that he sees often. “I like green the most,” he says pointing to his t-shirt. As a testimonial to his green fetish are his pages of colouring and painting that have green as a common element in most of them.
Encouraged by institutions like Vidyasagar, Teja’s works have made it to the offices of Ashok Leyland, Royal Bank of Scotland and Think Soft. Teja’s works have also received a fashionable twist with NIFT choosing his paintings to embellish T shirts and bags. Featuring in video productions that talk about autism awareness, Teja is also the recipient of the Guts and Grit Award, 2006, given by the Rotary Club of Madras Temple City.
A final-year multimedia student, Teja, who also studied at the National Institute of Open Schooling after his initial years in Hyderabad, says that he wishes to take painting and graphic design as his full-time career.
Musical Voyage
Music was born with him and it has been his soul companion throughout his 38-year-old journey. B Krishnakumar, a person with autism, can converse with you in music. He is proficient at it, as he is with five other languages — Tamil, Kannada, Hindi, Sanskrit and English.
With piles of books on keertanas, Krishnakumar, who is adept at carnatic and hindustani, has very little time for people who don’t sing at once. “Sing fast, what is taking you so long,” he admonishes this reporter. His mother Meera Balachander explains that one has never had to coax him to sing. “He doesn’t need to look at the lyrics either, you just tell him the song’s name and he will start singing with ease and without hesitation. He was born with music. When he was a few months old, my aunt took him to the pooja room and sang to him to pacify him as he began crying loudly. He immediately stopped crying. Music was always in him, that’s why we didn’t have to train him intensively in it,” she says.
Krishna’s interest in music has been nurtured by his mother, who helps him set slokas to tune. While he goes for bhajan classes by singer and writer Lakshmi Mohan, Meera says that the size of their audience has never made him nervous.“He sang in front of Pandit Bhimsen Joshi when he was just 12. Panditji had said Krishna sang exactly like him,” she says.
After a public performance accompanied by other autistic people on mridangam, ghatam and ganjira, Krishna is set for his maiden solo concert for the upcoming World Disability Day later this year. His mother believes in Krishna and has provided a nurturing environment for him to pursue his passion in music. “I never learnt music, but I have been interested in it. Through him, I am fulfilling that desire as well.”
Once an avid reader, Krishna lost interest in it after a breakdown during his teens. After vocational training, he has been doing tailoring at home, an activity that he pursues alongside music.
However, while his talent in music has been acknowledged by one and all, Meera says she isn’t sure if she could call it a success story. “I would say it is a success, if one day I can leave him alone in a community where he is completely secure and doesn’t require my presence,” she says. More on P3