Sowing ability of mentally challenged

Nov. 29: With the intelligence of a two-year-old, Sudarshan, 33, may not know the difference between yellow and green, and will probably dismiss a Rs 500 note as a scrap of paper. “I am five years old,” he says proudly when asked about his age. But Sudarshan can sow paddy and tend to the crop through summer and winter, oblivious to the fact that he is making Rs 1,200 every month for his back-breaking effort, and is even able to support his elderly mother with the money. “I like the feel of mud in my hands and under my feet,” is all he says about his life as a farmer.
Like Sudarshan, an epileptic patient with severe mental retardation, several mentally challenged ‘children’ work on 20 acres of lush green farm at Pathway Agro Foundation, tucked away in Agali, Kancheepuram, that grows its own rice, enough to feed more than 600 people, with the help of these special cultivators.
While younger, disabled children patiently fill in little plastic bags with mud to grow ornamental plants, or till the colourful vegetable garden, the older ones are up at the crack of dawn on the paddy fields, removing row after row of weeds until noon. A group of contract labourers stand by to assist them, occasionally pushing away water snakes that slither past.
“For those kids who suffer brain damage at birth, and have both mental and physical disability, it takes years of physiotherapy and training just to get them to clench their fingers and walk a few steps,” says Dr A.D.S.N. Prasad, founder-director, Pathway. But the effort is worth it as there is no better therapy than working with water and earth, he explains.Anand (24), who can easily be mistaken for a naughty schoolboy with his porcupine hair and Rajinikanth mimicry, agrees. “When I am angry, I take it out on the weeds. It helps,” he says with a lopsided smile.
Mentally retarded people, whether children or adults, should always be kept occupied, says Dr R Sathianathan, director of the Institute of Mental Health. “An occupation like working on the fields, when it involves physical exercise as well as interaction with a group of workers, would be therapeutic,” he says.