Celebrating Liberation

Video 2: Harish telling the story of Guzaarish on camera.
Today was 19th December – The Goa Liberation Day! The day on which Goa got independence from the Portuguese rule. With freedom in the air, we also decided to celebrate Liberation- liberation from the stammering attitude. We met at around 10.30 am, in a half-constructed building. The meeting was attended by Rahul, Prakash and Harish. We had the following activities. 1. We started with 10 minuites of meditation (Dhyan). After that, we discussed about how the experience was, and whether we could concentrate, and what techniques we used to gain concentration. 2. We had a practice session of Prolongation. All three of us recited in sync the entire barakhadi (a aa e ee u uu) in prolonged voice and every time raising the pitch of the voice. 3. Then we had a round of story telling when one person started a story and every member had to add a sentence using bouncing or prolongation. 4. We played a game. Participants had to ask questions to each of us. But the rule of the game was question had to be answered only after the participant finds a pebble and places it on a wooden plank. This was to practice talking by taking our time when we are met with sudden questions. 5. Then we had a very important session. Each participant had to tell a story of any movie that they have watched. But they had to tell the story by facing the camera. The speech was recorded, and later the speech was played, and each one of us scrutinized our speeches, analysed it, and also observed a few secondary symptoms (facial expressions or movement of hands etc.) that we have. 6. We had another session of introducing ourselves in front of the camera, and we all analysed the videos again. We had loads of fun while doing all those above exercises, had fruitful practice sessions and also learnt a few things more about our speech. Before parting away, Rahul shared an incident about how he had to go to a post office and buy envelope and a stamp. He could have well avoided it, he says, but he shared how he did it, even if he knew that he would stammer. He stammered alright, but was happy that he did it himself! On that happy note, we bade farewell to each other, promising to meet again next week. Pictures and a couple of videos shared. Interaction with Herbertpur SHG. In the evening, I had a very interesting session with two members of the Herbertpur SHG- Parmanand and Nishu. Parmanand is an accountant by profession and is a PWS, while Nishu is a student, a part-time DJ and is a non-PWS who works with TISA as a volunteer. We talked on many things about stammering and related issues. Basically I was looking to interview a few volunteers for an article on Samvad. And I got loads of content to say the least! I then had a brief practice session of Bouncing with Dr. Sachin. All in all, it would say, this was one of the most productive Sundays I’ve had after a long time!