Parental care and a case for the physically challenged

How much are parents ready to sacrifice for their progeny? Some say there is no limit to sacrifices parents can make for their young ones -their alter ego. It is not uncommon to come across news specifically pointing out how a father embraces death only to save his son's life. Emperor Babar, the founder of the Mughal empire, prayed to the Almighty God to spare his son Humayun's life at its terminal state and instead take his own life. His prayer is famously known to have been granted. One does not, however, need to be an emperor of Babar's stature to make the ultimate sacrifice. Even today when human relations are subtly dictated by self-interests or commercial considerations, there will be many parents not at all wanting in the will to protect the lives of their sons and daughters risking their own lives. In the animal world also, parental care is almost comparable. However, an experiment carried out on monkeys has not been equally encouraging. When an iron cage with a monkey and its baby inside was heated up gradually, the mother immediately picked up the small one. As the heat rose, she put her on her back but when the heat crossed the limit of tolerance, she took the baby down under her feet to stand on it. In human society parents usually take pride in doing the best in their ability. At times there is an unspoken competition between mother and father and they are not averse to telling the world how each of them care for their son or daughter. There are extremes, though, to this parental competition. When a mother sells her baby in utter helplessness or leaves her husband and children to live with another man or a husband does the same not once but quite a few times, we know one type of parental fallacy. In more extreme cases, a mother or father goes to such extents as to kill his or her child only to be united with the man or woman she has become infatuated with. Are such people devils incarnate? If fierce carnivores ensure their survival by even driving away their fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, brothers and sisters, in human society too such examples are not quite uncommon. To one extreme is Babar and to the other is a descendant of his in the shape of Alamgir who imprisoned his father Shajahan to take over the empire. There are incidents of sons killing their fathers to capture the crown galore. When there is no straight-cut journey into the parental hearts, let us now have a look at a father named Saidul Islam from Nalitabari, Sherpur. A rickshaw-puller by profession, Saidul, reports a Bangla daily, has religiously been taking his physically challenged daughter, who on account of her permanently immobilised right hand and two legs cannot move alone without help, to a school five kilometres away year after year with cent per cent attendance for the girl. He has to carry his daughter on his lap to have her seated on rickshaw and school bench. Her name Shantara Khatun, the girl appeared for the recently held junior school public examination. The school recognised the father's endeavour with the best guardian's award. Fathers from their respective standing do all they can for their children but theirs simply pale before what Saidul is doing. He deserves greater accolades than the one he has received from the school. And the best award would be to help realise his dream of a secure future for his daughter who, despite her physical constraints, is doing quite well in her study. A man of small economic means Saidul has been very frank to tell that other children of his will be able to look after themselves but this one with her physical handicap definitely cannot fend for herself without education. It is exactly at this point, the question of state responsibility comes to the fore. Even without being a welfare state, a democratic set-up needs to have special arrangement for its less-than-fortunate citizens. There have to be opportunities for the physically or mentally challenged to bring out the best in themselves. For the physically challenged, in particular, it would be a sheer waste if their potential is left unrealised. Had English society been not caring enough, the world would not have got the most celebrated astrophysicist of our time -Stephen Hawking, to be sure. At 21 when he was diagnosed Amyotrophic Lateral Scelerosis (ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease) doctors gave him only two and a half years' time for his survival. The mediocre student then reflected after a dream that he still had things to do with his life. He then concentrated on his studies and research, only more so on realisation that he would not live long enough. That realisation combined with the love of a young woman whom he married made all the difference in his life as well as in the life of humankind. According to his own admission, "I was bored with life before my illness". Now he discovered the meaning of living a life. He defied death but not the progressive deterioration of his physical condition. Yet this could not stop him becoming the pre-eminent scientist of our time. Any amount of expenditure is worth making to produce a scientist of his ilk.