A father reacts to Margarita With A Straw..

As a parent of a cognitively challenged child I am looking forward to the release of Margarita With A Straw protagonist is saying ‘Hamaarey bhee armaan hain,’ or words to that effect, translating into ‘those with special needs also have sexual needs.’ Of course they do. And these need to be addressed openly, instead of being constantly shoved into the closet by our relatively conservative society.

Actually, it is the world outside of those we are talking about – ie the intellectually or otherwise challenged, and their caregivers – which has such a clearly delineated /linear idea about the entire gamut of issues relating to that dreaded, no go word, ‘sexuality’.

For us, as parents, it has more to do with that almost invisible and yet, paradoxically, highly felt, transition from bedwetting accidents to. Now how do I say all that ‘unmentionable’ stuff?

In our case, with our twenty something young man, the wetting happened mostly due to seizures. But many times, beyond the age of 13-14, and now at 20 plus, the pants are wet, for another reason than the mere loss of bladder control. Full stop.

Yet , none of the above is 'A-Z's articulation. I say 'A to Z' to incorporate my son and millions like him, who are young men with special needs, mostly nonverbal, unable to speak for themselves (or write for themselves, as the case may be). He's my son and I speak for what I think is him. He speaks a few basic words to get to his basic needs, essentially for food recreation and sometimes for survival. The survival articulation is a yell of anguish, saying get off my back.

The rest of the words up there, and here on, are my articulation of what I think is the personal that is him, and his needs. The needs could be of any kind, only here in this article, the focus is on sexual and related needs.

It is about finding words to say how we cope with him plunging his hands into his pants to scratch, or more...

It is about finding a communication and teaching mechanism to be able to explain to him, tell him, that this is something you avoid doing in public, and perhaps ‘do’ only in private, 'in your own room.'

What I’m getting at is this: those outside of the world of people with special needs, need to understand in a basic way, that there are many many worlds, and layers even in this special world. The danger with the way people view this kind of a film (not with this film itself, please note) is the same that we in the world of special needs, faced with the much celebrated Taare Zameen Par. While that film, and the iconic Aamir, did do landmark service by putting dyslexia (just ONE kind of ‘dis’ ability) on the map, it also made life quite irritating for a whole lot of us. Because it ended up oversimplifying disability in general to that well-meaning but discomfiting neighbour/relative/friend who would ask us, about our son, ‘Does he
paint?’ ‘Does he like music?’ ‘What special talent does he have?”

And we would have to, and still do, answer, no not really, our sons A-Z (and daughters) are just like any other normal (Eeks! What a word!) individual. They have no special talent. They would appreciate being appreciated for being themselves. Without any special talent.

It is the same with sexual needs. Yes they’re there. But the larger issue is just simple companionship, with and from peers, and otherwise. To be able to have someone physically around you, evening after evening, night after night, into your 30s, 40s…

As parents, we don’t even dare to think beyond that. 

Also read: Sexuality of the disabled still suppressed in India