Arti Deo

      Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—     I took the one less traveled by,     And that has made all the difference.                                                                                  By Robert Frost                                                                                               When I was young, I was a totally carefree, fun-loving person; an extrovert by nature, I made friends easily. I used to be interested in everything and would take part in all the activities in school and college. I was a Jack of all trades, with a keen interest in arts, sports, and I excelled at academics too. With minimum effort I always managed to be in the top three in school.   Those days, we did not have many career options. If you were good at studies, you went for either engineering or medicine and most of my close friends in junior college opted to study medicine. My cousin Padam Dada, who was from Pune, was studying medicine at Grand Medical college in Mumbai. He woul

  When I mentioned my fears regarding Tanaya to a friend, who had a daughter with cerebral palsy, her antennae went up! She said, “Forget what the doctor said. If you have a doubt, do not waste another moment”. She gave me the contact of a physiotherapist who was also trained in Neuro Developmental Therapy (NDT) and was supposed to be very good. So I started taking Tanaya for therapy every evening and it was the most traumatic experience ever!! My complaint was that Tanaya did not cry? Well, now I got a taste of what it was to hear her cry. She would howl her heart out throughout the entire session. It was the most heart wrenching experience for me. There were children of different ages, and different diagnoses, all going through similar painful therapy and crying their hearts out. The impact of the therapy and the therapists was felt by my entire family. Witnessing the pain of the children and the parents and the attitude of the therapists sent me into a spiral of depression. I star