Sunday 21 October 2012

My Journey to Tamahar:

I was always meant to be an Occupational Therapist! Generally when I say this aloud in a group, the immediate reaction is smiles, polite laughs! But, it is true. 30 years ago, when elders had a definite say in your future vocation, Occupational Therapy (OT) was my 3rd option. I wanted to be a Marine Biologist, and then a Psychologist. When it became clear that was not going to happen, mainly because neither was seen as a successful career option for a go-getter Career-oriented person like me, OT happened! This was of course after I had disappointed my mom by not getting enough marks to get into Medicine! I did not want to do Microbiology, so the OT option. This is all of course as I make sense of my journey, but there definitely was divine intervention. My mother happened to work at a Cancer Rehabilitation Center as a Clinical Psychologist, that is where I saw the first Occupational Therapy department working, and I was hooked.

My real learning started when I came to Bangalore and joined the Spastic's Society of India (as it was known then) and started my work with children. Funnily, I had always avoided the Pediatric (children's) section while at OT school! It was then that I decided, 22 years ago, that Tamahar would be started in or around Malleswaram! I say Divine Intervention because the next 20 years saw me doing different things in the same field, being thrown in different directions, but always learning. Things just came my way in order to enrich my experience and teach me amazing stuff. I let myself be guided down the current, picking up whatever came my way, till it reached Tamahar! I am honored to have been chosen to go down this path. If not me, then it would have been somebody else!!

2 comments:

  1. This one is awesomeee :) Keep Blogging Vaishali mam and kudos to your efforts:)All The best

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  2. U kids were responsible for this!

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