Excerpts from 'The Singer who Turned Into a Writer '

By Anantha Krishnan M - Published: Indian Express 06th February 2014
Shubashree Sarkar was born in Dubai and and spent the first 10 days of her life in an ICU following pneumonia. She regained her health soon and her parents gave her a pet name, Stuti. Her father Sandip Sarkar would often sing Lata Mangeshkar songs to put her to sleep.
Music was very much part of the lives of the Bengali family, hailing from Ranchi. Little Stuti’s favourite song was Yeh Raat Bheegi Bheegi from the film Chori Chori. She would throw her tantrums so that her mother Joyshree Sarkar would sing another Lata song, Naina Barse Rim Zim... from the movie Woh Kaun Thi. When Stuti was one year and seven months old, her great grandmother passed away and the death ceremony was underway. The priests were performing the rituals (in Sanskrit) and Stuti surprised everyone by reciting the mantras (slokas) without a break. “We couldn’t believe it and even now it remains a mystery to all of us as to how she could do it. She had never heard these mantras before. When she was one-and-a-half-years old, Stuti started singing songs all by herself and most of it were perfect. I still remember that she could easily sing over 100 songs by listening to the small tape recorder we had,” says Joyshree, a post-graduate in Psychology and a resident of Indiranagar.
During the same period, her parents noticed some changes in Stuti’s behaviour. When the girl turned three, she had an epileptic attack one night and immediately thereafter, she lost her speech.
Stuti is 22 years old now and she has never spoken a word ever since. “We consulted a doctor in Dubai (in 1994) and it was confirmed that she had autism. We took a second opinion and got her to Hinduja Hospital in Mumbai and we were really hoping that she will recover. It was tough for me to see my daughter unable to express all of a sudden. It was tough not to hear her sing again, which we were so used to. But, the reality was my girl was autistic,” says Joyshree.
Accepting the fate, Joyshree began teaching Stuti English alphabets at the age of five and it almost took her one year to complete the task successfully., Stuti started expressing her thoughts with the help of a communicating board. “Whenever Stuti would get hyperactive, we would show her the board, and she would point her fingers at each letter and construct words so that we could tell her needs. In 1998, we bought her a portable typewriter and she loved it. She always wanted a medium to communicate and in two years she graduated to computers In 2010, Stuti started attending the Spastics Society of Karnataka. ‘She started writing small poems, notes and even articles in the last four years. Now she updates her Facebook account frequently, of course with some help from her mother. She reads newspapers, watches TV and her GK is good,” says her aunt Amrita.
Amrita says that Stuti’s thoughts are very high and one needs the patience to capture them. “Her ways of expressions are inspiring and remarkable. I hope she will lead a more normal life. There is restlessness right now but her writing is outstanding,” says Amrita. Stuti is often lost in her thoughts and she loves to be on her rocking chair. “She wants to be a writer and also wants to write her autobiography some day. She is definitely a girl gifted with a creative brain,” adds Amrita.
For Joyshree, bringing up Stuti was an enjoyable experience. “I want to tell all mothers to respect the feelings of the special child. Please ask what the problem is. Do not lose patience. Every action of theirs is linked to their needs. Parents should understand their needs. In Stuti, I have discovered many things over the years. First my little cute girl, then the singer, then after she lost speech, a great communicator and now a grown up girl, a great thinker and writer. You know, truly she’s my precious soul,” says Joyshree

By Mail from Autism Society