Mothers of disabled children in India face abandonment by spouses

From The Times of India:

MUMBAI, India -- Five-year-old Ahana, whose mother Anandita Mishra was stabbed to death by a jealous colleague in Navi Mumbai last September, is fighting for life in intensive care.

Her father, who works in Delhi, left the family several years ago, and has not even called after Anandita's death.

Her grandmother, Purnima Goswami, worrying about the child-who suffers from severe cerebral palsy - and says she does not know what it was that made her son-in-law leave, but fears that Ahana's disability could have been one of the factors.

Anandita's story is similar to that of scores of other women in the city, silently bringing up disabled children on their own after their husbands walked out, overwhelmed at having to deal with a child who could not see, talk or walk `normally'.

Abandonment occurs across the economic spectrum. In the shanties of Behrambaug in Jogeshwari, Zohra Charania (name changed) grimly watches her husband "enjoy life'' with his new bride.

Adding insult to injury, he has rebuilt his life in the same neighbourhood, close enough to observe her daily struggle, but at a safe distance when she needs support.

"Responsibility of any kind always repulsed him,'' says Zohra.

Expensive hearing aids, therapy sessions and the effort to rehabilitate the baby were not pieces that made up Charania's picture of an ideal family.

Kalpana Bhanushali's shares a similar story. Ten years ago, when she was just 20, Kalpana was abandoned by her husband, a salesman at a sari store in Vile Parle.

"My one-year-old son had just been diagnosed as deaf-mute, and a second baby was on the way,'' says the soft-spoken Kalpana, whose smile sits oddly but bravely with her traumatic past.

Her second son was also born deaf.

"Both of them are a handful,'' she laughs dryly. "They keep me on my toes.''

The only silver lining is that Kalpana lives with her in-laws. "It gives the kids a sense of security," she says.

Military school seems easier than the strict regimen these women follow: four hours of sleep a day, no weekends and no breaks.

Both Zohra and Kalpana wake up before sunrise, cook and clean for the family, then drop their children to school.

"We would do all this even if our husbands were present, but the moral support would have helped,'' Kalpana smiles.

For a disabled child, the abandonment is compounded by guilt and anguish.

Teenager Azeem Charania cannot understand why his mother does not make enough money for him to go on a holiday to Mahabaleshwar, like his friends do.

"At first he didn't understand that his father has taken a second wife, but now he watches the saas-bahu serials, so he knows,'' says Zohra.

But psychologists say that for a man to walk out of a marriage after the birth of a challenged child, some cracks would have to already exist in the relationship.

"In a patriarchal society like India, the tendency to blame the mother for a child's handicap does come into play. Bad marriages may crumble faster in such cases, but a happy, well-adjusted couple is more likely to bring up the child together,'' says clinical psychologist Narendra Kinger.

The Joshis can attest to this. Five-year-old Natasha Joshi was born deaf and mute, but the devotion showered upon her my her doting parents have done wonders. Her father Uday Joshi invests all his affection in his only child.

"My daughter is a part of my own flesh so I owe her the best of everything,'' he says.

Vandana Hariname, an audiologist at the Shruti Intervention Centre - a special school for deaf-mute children in Vile Parle - holds up Joshi as an exemplary father.

"He takes care of her every need and is every bit as dedicated as the other. The results show, and Natasha is on her way to achieving near normalcy,'' she says.

Hariname, who has compared the progress of students from stable families with those from broken homes, says, "The emotional costs are, of course, vast. Not having a father definitely slows them down.''