Page 29 - Lavender-B-8
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At first, Chuskit did not realise that she was in any way different from Stobdan, her
younger brother, or her cousins. But soon there were many things she could not do as
easily as them.
‘That does not matter,’ her Aba-ley would tell her whenever she felt sad. ‘You can stitch
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better than any of them. And you draw very well.’ Aba-ley often brought her some colour
pencils from Leh.
Chuskit would sit at the kitchen window every day
and draw what she saw while her Ama-ley cooked.
She could see her family’s animals being taken to
graze every morning.
She could see the blue waters of the stream that
flowed nearby. And she would be the first one to
announce the arrival of a visitor to their house!
Chuskit used a chair fitted with wheels to move
around. Elders called it a wheelchair. You could
move it in any direction—forward, left, right
and even backward—by moving the wheels
with your hands. You only needed to have
really strong arms to push the weight of your
body and the chair.
When Aba-ley first brought the wheelchair
home, everyone in her family was very excited.
‘Now I won’t have to carry Chuskit everywhere. I can wheel her around,’ said Ama-
ley, with tears of happiness in her eyes. ‘And I will be able to go wherever I want!’ cried
Chuskit excitedly.
‘Please, please, could I ride on your wheelchair once in a way?’ begged Stobdan. He
wanted to wheel it around too. It looked like fun. Billa, the big black cat, jumped on to the
wheelchair and stretched across the seat.
‘Yes, this is far more comfortable than the sack cloth I sleep on,’ she purred.
Slowly, Chuskit learnt to use her wheelchair. She would ask her mother to seat her in the
wheelchair outside her home every evening.
From here she would watch children returning from school, chattering and laughing
merrily in groups. In a while, the evening bus would return from Leh, bringing back
people from work and the market place. How much more exciting the world was from
here than from the kitchen window!
5 ‘Father’ in Ladakhi
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