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Tau ji: How are you, beta? Shreya: Fine. How are you? So difficult to connect to India… T: Never mind. At least I can see you, sitting there in America! What more could I ask for? Silence. T: So, how are you, beta? And your job? S: Fine. Our company has paid for our shots. […]
Feedback from a participant TISA is offering a 10-week online course (on rolling basis) for PWS (People Who Stammer) who: The course will be facilitated by: The course will use the Google Classroom (MOOC-style) interface. Both Hindi and English will be used. What will participants do? This is not a passive “watch-and-listen” course. Participants will actively engage in: You […]
Dear Friends, For the last 7–8 years, TISA has enjoyed an open and organic culture. Many Self-Help Groups (SHGs) came into existence, and that phase served us well. We are now entering a new phase—one of consolidation and quality improvement. As part of this process, I have been reviewing all SHGs closely, and I have […]
I want to sincerely thank the Women Who Stammer (WWS) who came forward and shared difficult experiences they have faced within the The Indian Stammering Association community over the years. Instead of circulating the original PDF document, I am sharing selected summaries and my own understanding of the issue. I felt this was necessary because […]
I was reading a paper on how children develop gender identity (“I dont want to play with dolls; I like trucks”). A certain line caught my attention. It seems, that a very young child (1-2 yo) may not have any gender identity, but by 3, it begins to identify itself as a “boy” or a […]
Many years ago, when I was a wide-eyed social worker (still “wet behind the ears”), I met a gender expert. She said, rather casually, “Every man is potentially a rapist.” I was both shocked and impressed—being a man myself. I knew that such men did exist in our world, and perhaps she was pointing to […]
You influence everything but control nothing. Having practiced and shared (“taught”) techniques for a long time, let me offer some thoughts. Many PWS have an unconscious resistance to “techniques”: What! I have to use artificial tricks just to say my name now? And yes, it is a lot of “work”—not just drudgery, but the need […]
These are notes to myself: I will revisit these before I launch -God Willing! – TOPG 3.0 or any group activity for that matter. We need to have a long warm-up or run-up before ANY event. Because people need time to make up their minds and the organizers also need time to screen, select, and […]
Slash and Burn is another name for Jhum cultivation which is prevalent in some countries. Trees are burned and cleared- cropping is done for some years. When the ground fertility is gone, a new patch is cleared- and the cycle goes on. This is what was happening at the edge of an ancient forest. One […]
This Yamuna valley where I live, roughly stretches a hundred kilometers, between Paonta Sahib and Dehradun, in the Shivaliks. Here, Tons River joins Yamuna, as they both come tumbling out of the mountains, into the Terai. From Pathans, to Mughals, to Maratha, and finally to British – they all came, ruled this region and eventually […]
Jaipur Communication Workshop Report 22-24 Sept 2023 This is a brief narrative report about what was accomplished in the 3-day TISA workshop. It was organized by the Jaipur Self-Help group, very efficiently and in a cost-effective manner. About thirty participants (three women) took part in it; one participant joined with both parents and another, with […]
What people who stutter (PWS) need in order to gain some control over their stutter may not always be therapy of some kind, but exposure! Yes, exposure to more and more scenarios and circumstances – Circumstances that could allow them to express themselves vocally and thereby inspire them to make little efforts to stride out […]
The fact is- it was a picnic, a get-together, which we gave a fanciful name of “mini-workshop” ☺️ – and to prove the point we did have a little (but serious) discussion. So before we had a boat ride and a picnic lunch under the trees in the vast sprawling grounds of Patna Zoo, we […]
(A humorous piece on TISA) TISA membership is entirely free. You can join and leave anytime. In fact, you can join it just before your campus interview and leave it five minutes later. In the US Visa interview, you can leave our membership midway, soon after the introduction rounds are safely over. TISA is another […]
TISA Bodhgaya Communication Workshop 8-9 Jan 2023 Four noble truths: There is Stammering. There is a cause of stammering. There is a state beyond Stammering. There is a path to it. Let us walk that path, like Buddha! Introduction Twelve pws explored concepts and techniques related to stammering, besides bonding and exploring this town, famous […]
Solitude (A short story) The old man was again in the church today at his regular time. He quietly comes in and sits in one of the pews at the back. This is not the usual time to visit though. One day, I asked him: Why don’t you attend the morning service? The afternoon is […]
Dear All, This post was long due! But without any further ado, let me share something that makes me very happy. Let us all join in welcoming Nikhil Iyer into his new responsibility with TISA, as the National Coordinator. Nikhil will be playing a significant role in running TISA as an organization, participating in key […]
Many pws join TISA and want to play a bigger role than just a member. They want to contribute. Mooc 2 is an opportunity for them. But let us face the facts: You can help others only if you have helped yourself – at least to some extent! Therefore, Mooc 2 is aimed at people […]
A young pws, Vinay, came to visit me from eastern UP in 2014. I took him to some nearby shops for voluntary stammering. Then, we came home and had a cup of tea in the back lawn. He was still trembly! It was such a big shock for him. I brought out an old medal […]
I am so happy that the three days of NC have gone so well, from every perspective. My happiness is doubled, even trebled, when I realise that all this has happened without me hovering all over NC like a compulsive mother hen! When I left home on 19th Sept. for Leh, there were two predominant […]