The third meeting of the Bangalore SHG

The third meeting of the Bangalore SHG was held on 27-Sep-2009 at Cubbon Park, the usual venue of the meeting. We were expecting only Amith, K1, S and I for this session as N and P had conveyed that they would be out of station. I reached the venue by 9.50 AM. Some function was going on in the place where I usually parked the vehicle and I had to park the vehicle in the road leading to the parking lot. Since it was on the road and nobody came to collect the parking fee I had a feeling that I would be able to save Rs.20/- as parking fee.

I went to the side of the library building thinking I would be the first person to come, but as I reached the place, I could see S going towards a concrete bench to sit. I followed him and greeted him. We indulged in some discussions about treatments of stammering and the method of bouncing which I learned from Dr. Sachin over the phone some days back. By that time S received a call from K1 and he was waiting for us in front of the library building. S waved at him and he came to us. I started to bounce with him and we talked about bouncing for some time.

Since Amith was getting late, we decided to go to a good place to sit and inform him about the place when he called. Last week, I had seen a hut with some seats in the park and we decided to go there. We reached the place and it was empty but for a dog. The caretaker assured us that it wouldn’t bite and we decided to sit there. Luckily the dog didn’t disturb us:-).

We decided to wind up the meeting by 11.30 as K1 had a function in his building. K1 spoke about the experiences of visiting Landmark foundation and how it helped him in speaking fluently for a day. It was possible by imagining that we have achieved the end result of curing the stammering and doing the things that we wanted to do with that feeling. I had taken the newspaper with me and we decided to read a report from it and present it to the team by applying the techniques we have learned through different therapies.

I decided to apply bouncing and read and presented one item from the newspaper without any difficulty. After that it was the turn of S and he also decided to apply bouncing. Though it took some time for him to learn the technique, he also could complete the task in a good way. K1 decided to apply the technique he learned in Landmark foundation and started to read the report, but struggled with that. He decided to try bouncing and struggled with that too. Then he tried bouncing slowly and could read it fluently.

In between we received the message from Amith that he was stuck with some guests and that he wouldn’t be coming. Then we decided to disperse by standing a distance apart and saying something loudly. We told about ourselves, our education, activities etc and left by 11.40 AM. I reached the place where I parked my vehicle and nobody came to collect the parking fee, thus saving Rs.20/-:-).

Bangluru- Third meeting !

Hi,
This week there was not much strength in our team. Only 3 members, since it was a long weekend, many people travelled to their natives.
Karthik, Sudheendran and Subhash met in cubbon park as usual. K thought he reached first and was waiting in the parking lot. He waited there for 5 mins and then called up Subhash to find out where he was. To his shock Subhash and Sudheendran were waiting inside the park :)

Then we walked to a different place this time, much better than last time. The only draw back was people were moving around. That dint stop us.

We were moving to that place and saw a Black dog sleeping in that place. We tried to frighten that away, but no use. It dint respond to us. It was in a deep sleep. It shows how least bothered it was being about others. So acknowldeging its behaviour we just sat near a bench and started our session.

Sudheendran explained us the bouncing technique which was explained by sachin. He explained it in a awsome way by demonstrating it on how we should practice that.

Karthik also had a technique which he had learn in one of his educations. The technique of "Being".

Sudheendran had bought a newspaper. We all started to read that newspaper in the bouncing technique fashion. This went on for half an hour. Then we started with our self introduction. The total session went for bout 1.5 hours and we disbursed at 11:30.

Thats our session this week.


regards
Karthik.R

Very Important counselling lesson

Mukesh was here in the morning for speech therapy. We started with story telling by bouncing and prolongation. As I saw and observed, Mukesh was good at both the techniques in the clinic but has never used them outside.So, I thought of taking him out and have both of us practice these techniques in the real world. Mukesh was very hesitant to use the techniques initially, so I had to first give him a demo by taking to a stranger and then to a group of people by using boucing and prolongation. But still he was hesitant to talk to people, so i tried pushing him hard, which as I see in the end was of no use. What I should have done was first of all to be very flexible with our goals. If he was not finding it comfortable to do a planned activity, I should have changed the goal and the task immediately to something which he could have achieved..e.g. Talk to a stranger in whatever way he feel comfortable by keeping eye contact all the time and in the end I could have asked him the colour of the person's eyes. Because whenever some one goes home after a speech theraphy session, he/she should be in high spirits, full of confidence and with a sense of achievement. These are in themselves very important aspects of theraphy. Will keep them in mind from next time.

Dehradun SHG meet

Dehradun SHG Met on 27th September 2009, at Mrs Jain's house. We started by dividing ourselves into groups of two each and introduced our partners. Then we moved to a role play where we enacted a typical SHG meet, which helped some of the members bring out a lot of constructive feedback about the group meetings. Next we discussed Hrithik's interview. It was really great to see that most of the group members were in high spirits after the discussion and are willing to work sincerely on achieving their speech goals.Next we played antakshrai and then concluded with reverse story telling. Most of the group members found it hard to narrate a story backwards. In our next meeting, we are planning to go out for stuttering interviews.

Chennai SHG meets!

Dear friends,
The Chennai chapter meeting on 26.09.2009 were attended by 7 PWS. The low attendance was due to pooja holidays and in number of establishments the pooja was celebrated on that day.

Well everyone told one story each. As usual, all were told stories in a hurry.I emphasied again the importance of pausing for a few seconds between sentences.

One PWS blocked severely in the beginning. I advised him to have a deep breath, shake head gently, prolong the first letter of the word and start speaking. He spoked fairly well after wards. The PWS is a photographer by profession. After sometime when I asked why my photos were not good compared to his photographs?. He explained in detail about the photographs taken by professionals. This time he not at all stammered. When I asked to him for the reason, he replied that he forgotten about the stammering while he explaining about his profession.

Then I explained about the difference between intellectual and wisdom (gnana) which I already explained earlier in another post. For the benefit of those who has not read the earlier post, I once again explained here.

Knowing that there is a speech therapy available to overcome stammering is intellectual. To select appropriate speech therapy is more intellectual. knowing that speech therapy will take months and even years to overcome stammering is the most intellectual. But that speech therapy has to be put into practice to overcome stammering is called wisdom. what is the use of knowing so many speech therapies which not been put into use?
Hence I requested everyone to do therapy regularly.

Thats all from Chennai.
V. Manimaran
Mobile: 098842 89989

Stuttering and Intelligence

Are stutterers supposed to be less intelligent? This is what many sellers of
cure think! They offer you "Under 9 minute" cure for 39 dollars! Here is a smart
PWS who has taken the effort to rip this guy apart; very interesting read- and
spread the good news:
http://stutteringstudent.blogspot.com/2009/09/9-minute-stuttering-cure-update.ht\
ml

A true Hero indeed !

Guys - check out this review of last night's program by JP- Farah Khan talks to Rithik about his struggles with stammering.
http://stammer.in/component/content/article/34-cat-info/191-hrithik-a-true-hero-.html

Common women & men - Uncommon lives !

As a run up to 22nd Oct (ISAD), TISA is bringing out uncommon stories of common men- people like us. We believe that by talking about our struggles and sharing our strategies- we benefit ourselves and the reader; Society too becomes more accepting and open in the process. After all, stammering is only a different way of talking and therefore nothing to be hidden away from public space. Here are the first two sharings:
http://stammer.in/component/content/article/34-cat-info/187-my-stuttering-life.html
http://stammer.in/component/content/article/34-cat-info/190-common-men-uncommon-lives-.html

You too are welcome to share your uncommon stories with us. (satksri@rediffmail.com)

An appeal from Leys Geddes

Since we at the BSA have been cracking down on those misleading stammering
treatment claims, featured in advertisements, mainly on Google, a lot of
these snake oil salesmen have migrated to YouTube, whey they seem to be
allowed to make all sorts of claims, and no one is doing anything about it.
So, as a part of our International Stuttering Awareness Day celebrations, we
are encouraging our members to take action. But, even if you are not a
member of the BSA (yet), you can still join in.

Examples of these misleading videos come up if you search on YouTube for
phrases such as 'stammering cure' or 'stuttering cure'.

To help YouTube understand that videos advertising a stammering cure should
be taken down, click the 'Flag' link below the relevant video. When you
click the link you get a drop down menu. The most appropriate flagging
option is usually 'Spam', then choose the 'scams/fraud' option. Use this
when, for example, the video is a blatant ad for a treatment for which there
is no supporting data.

Alternatively - or even additionally - you could post a comment on videos
making doubtful claims, by simply saying, for example: "This claim is
misleading. There is no instant cure for stammering."

You might also come across videos which show the, er, 'mickey' is being
taken out of someone who stammers. In these cases you might want to flag
them as 'Hateful or Abusive Content' - 'bullying'.

For more information, see http://www.stammeri ng.org/adverts. html And happy
hunting!

LEYS

Fun in Delhi !

DEAR IPWS based in Delhi
Again there will be fun activities in central park (delhi)cp at 1 pm on 26 sept(saturday)
9891428380 ( Dr Kshitiz)

Mumbai - YMCA - 24 to 26 Sept !

Akash, a TISA core group member, will be in Mumbai during 24-26 September at YMCA. The Mumbai group should try to meet and discuss Keith's proposed visit in February 2010 !

3rd meeting of Jammu SHG......!!!

On 19th sep(saturday), we had our 3rd meeting of jammu SHG. The main objective of this meeting was to face our fears and the feeling of embarassment that we PWS go through.It is often seen that the attitude of a PWS and fluency in his/her speech, often depends upon the listener reaction to his/her stammer and what kind of facial looks(mostly weird) one gets when he/she stammers.We know that we are suppose to think in a positive way and dont let our emotions to control us.But it is really hard to keep on that positivity everytime we stammer and get a weird look.
This time also, it was only me and Aditya(the other pws in the SHG).At first we sat down and shared our experiences of the last week.we talked for about an hour. Then we started doing our tasks.

As there were only 2 members in the group and we wanted to have a photograph together.So we were in need of a third person who could take our photograph.So our first task was to request someone to take a photograph of both of us.This task was given to Aditya but the condition was that while speaking one has to use the Bouncing technique.We saw three gentleman standing at some distance and smoking. Aditya was ready to do some voluntary stammering by doing some Bouncing while requesting them.He prepared himself and we went to them.But at the last moment I dont know what happened to him and he forgot all of the bouncing technique. He just spoke normally to them. I think this was his first time , so he might be having that feeling of shame and embarassment in him.

Then we saw few boys coming towards us . Once again Aditya was made to go to them and request them to take a photograph of both of us. He again prepared himself and once again he forgot his voluntary stammering and spoke normally. But I jumped in and carried on with my Bouncing technique and did voluntary stammering while asking them a few more things in front of Aditya so that he gets familiar to it.And yes , one of the boy in that group started laughing and mocking on my way of speaking. But nothing bad happened . We also started laughing and we told them about our stammering. But still he was laughing at us and was hiding his face from us . Once again we said that "We people also laugh sometimes on the way we speak and you are also free to laugh my frnd".At last that fellow said sorry to us but then I started laughing and told him to keep on laughing and there is no need to say sorry.After this we felt that there was no feeling of shame and embarassment in us. And that was the objective of this meeting.

After this we saw a french couple with their 2 very sweet kids. I didn't paid much attention towards them and went passed them . But when I turned back, Aditya was shaking hands with them.So atlast he was having that courage in him to talk to strangers, thatz good. I also went to them. The Guys name was David and they came back from srinagar just 2 days ago.They were here on a tour. That french guy was not knowing english and called his wife to interact with us. We told them about our stuttering and our purpose of coming here. We also solved some of their problems bcoz they were not able to find someone who can speak English. Although the french accent of that lady was very difficult to understand but some how we managed to interpret what she was saying and solved their problems.

At last we came out of that place. I gave one more task to Aditya. He was made to go to a shop and buy something but he had to use that Bouncing technique . Finally ,this time he used the Bouncing technique and stammered voluntarily.

We had a lot of fun in this meeting and we also learned how to tackle with different reactions of listeners towards our stammering.

The Second meeting of the Bangalore SHG

The second meeting of the Bangalore SHG was held on 20-Sep-2009 at Cubbon Park. In the first meeting, it was decided to have the meeting at 10 AM every Sunday, with the available members. Since it took only half an hour the previous week for me to reach Cubbon Park from my residence in Marathahlli, I started only by 9.20 this week and reached there by 9.50. The place, where I parked the vehicle was very empty and nobody was there to collect the parking fee. I had taken with me the newspaper of that day for some reading practice and an old one to sit on. I just went to the side of the library building where we assembled for the first meeting. Amith who is the coordinator of the group was not feeling well and had asked me to coordinate the meeting, the previous day.

Nobody was there near the library and I was wondering whether the members had not taken a note of the timing as 10 AM when I received a call from N, who told he and P were standing near the entrance and whether they needed to go to the hut where we met the last time. Since nobody had come and since it had rained heavily the previous night, I told them to come to the library building. I was thinking of sitting on a concrete bench somewhere near the Library building as the ground was very wet.

In 5 to 10 minutes both N and P reached the place. In fact N had contacted Amith the previous night to enquire about the timing and had messaged me after coming to know from him that the meeting would be coordinated by me. So I was expecting at least him for the meeting:-). He told even P was a bit confused about the timing and that the coordinator should have sent a confirmation mail on Friday. It was decided to send a mail on Fridays to all the members informing them of the time and activities planned so as to avoid the confusion. N told he went through some of the pages of the ebook ‘the power of the sub conscious mind’ and that he was very impressed by that book. P told he downloaded the recording of the self suggestions I make from Rapidshare and would be listening to it. He wanted to know about EFT and I gave a brief description of it.

Even N and P were of the opinion that we could not go to the hut as the ground was wet. At that time we realized the need of having an indoor meeting place. We decided to move around the Park and find a suitable place to sit, as there was no sign of anybody else joining us. We moved to the opposite side of the Library building and found a circular seat around a tree. I covered the surface with the old newspaper, I had, and all three of us sat on it. Then we discussed about possible indoor meeting places. N suggested contacting some NGOs and proposed the names of ‘Art of Living’ and ‘Sri Rama Krishna Ashram’. It was decided to explore these further.

It was told by P that he went to Nimhans that week and had a consultation there. He was asked to do some breathing techniques and speak slowly. N told he contacted Amith’s cousin who had almost overcome stammering by taking up a marketing job. They talked for about half an hour. Amith’s cousin told N to master the subject in which he was working and to be more confident. That was how he could control his problem.

Then we decided to call Amith to know whether he had got any message from other members about their availability. Since he didn’t pick up the call, we decided to start the activities of the day. We decided to speak slowly and implement all the techniques we have learned through different therapies we attended while speaking in the group and do our best to follow the same when we go out of the meeting. Then we decided to introduce ourselves and speak about some topic. P started the activity and struggled a bit in the beginning. After that he implemented the breathing techniques and spoke slowly about himself and about football and cricket. He didn’t stammer on a single word:-) . Then he read some parts from the newspaper too. After that it was my turn and I spoke about myself and my career. I spoke slowly and stammered only once:-). Then came the turn of N and as usual he spoke fluently.

In between this we could connect to Amith and could get the number of K. I contacted him and came to know that he was also not doing well. He told he had messaged S about his unavailability, but even he didn’t turn up. Then he gave S’s number and in the end I asked P to call S and enquire about him by implementing the techniques learned by him. He talked to him, but didn’t implement any technique:-). He was fluent as they spoke in Tamil in which he was very comfortable:-).

Then I told them about the visit of Keith from UK and asked about their opinion about the activities and a suitable day. P wanted it to be planned after Deepavali as he would go to his native place and wouldn’t be available during that time. Any day after that is okay with him. N wanted it to be planned on Sunday as he works even on Saturdays. It would be impossible for him to come on any other day. All of us were of the opinion that we needed to have an interaction with him, probably at an indoor meeting place or at the residence of one of the members. I offered to have the meeting at my place if no other place was available.

We dispersed at 12.30. This time, the person collecting the parking fee was available there and the parking lot was almost full:-). N was coming to Marthahalli to visit his friend and I dropped him near Marthahalli bridge. On our return journey, N told there was a press club in Cubbon Park and if a press meet was required during the visit of Keith the details of arranging it can be obtained from there. We decided to explore this in the next meeting. It was a useful meeting except for the low turnout of the members as I could speak slowly during and after the meeting, which I am doing even now. I feel this should be an opportunity for us to practice the techniques learned by us and improve our confidence.

A fresh perspective

Savita is a social worker based in Pune. Once a week she writes a quality post on her blog (Times Change), which goes beyond her immediate world, her work in the voluntary sector. It discusses many issues which we may feel but may never talk about. It is also a thoughtful reflection on life and little lessons scattered all around- which we rarely have time to pick up and look over. This time she describes her participation in a Pune SHG meeting. It is the best 'take' on stammering from a non-stammerer so far. Plesae check it out- and dont forget to comment!

http://thistimethattime.blogspot.com/2009/09/55-pws.html

Mumbai Meeting

This is to inform all of you that SHG session in Mumbai have been conducted today. Just wanted to show share some of the glimpses of the meeting.

As I was the new member in the meeting, there were a total of 4 people.

1. Myself (Prakash)
2. Ajit
3. Bhaskar (one of the inspiring person)
4. Vikas

We have started the session in a garden with our introductions. We called each one of us, next, to share their opinion about what stammering meant to each one of us....so that we could have some picture/ concept about stammering in each of our mind.

Ajit will soon contact you with some more details......

Regards,
Prakash

Report from Jammu SHG's 2nd meeting...!!!

On 9th sep,2009 we had our second meeting and this one lasted for 2 hrs i.e. from 5 pm to 7 pm .In this meeting,we talked about some techniques like Per-Block,Post-Block & In-Block corrections.After that we had a 'story telling' session. We have already planned all this a day before(on 8th sep) when Aditya(the other pws in the SHG) came to my place to get all the movies and videos related to stammering.We discussed some important things while watching some of the videos and we also decided that we will have a 'story telling' session in our meeting tomorrow(on 9th sep), where both of us have to tell a story to eachother.So from quite a few time I was preparing for a story of a movie called "If only". It was a very nice movie and after watching that movie I always used to say to myself that "how would I narrate this story to anyone if I ever got a chance to speak fluent....??". So I was having this story always in my mind and I was very excited about our 2nd meeting where I would finally get a chance to tell this story to someone, no matter if I even stammer.
After disussing about the Block corrections , we started our story telling session. We were suppose to speak slowly,with proper breathing,bouncing,prolongation etc. No matter how much time it takes us to complete the story, just be relaxed and speak slowly.So I started first and I think that I took about 20 mins in telling the story. Even though a normal person would have taken 10 mins in narrating this story but I was very happy with ma timing.Then Aditya started with his story of the movie "17 Again".He took 15 mins.But He was trying to speak at a slow rate of speech and thatz good.

Aditya says : " My 2nd meeting is slightly more intresting from first one.what matters is that you must use all the techniques in telling stories .On that day, I talked with manpreet for more than 15 minutes continuously . Next time I am going not to bother about time I take in telling story , but about the way I speak( using all techniques )".

Now in our 3rd meeting I m trying to invite some more pws and we'll try to do some tasks like asking the shopkeeper using bouncing or prolongation.I learned all this at Samagra and now I want each and every pws to try these techniquesand tasks in real life situations.

Report from Jammu SHG's 1st meeting..!!!

His name is Aditya.He also stammerers.He went for a speech Therapy course at chandigarh in 2006 and was fluent for about 3 months after that therapy.But then that stammer came back again.

I met him after I came back from Dehradun.I went to Dehradun for a 7 days intensive therapy programme at Samagra ashram.I was there from 16th of Aug to 23rd of Aug,2009.There I came to know, that it is very important to have a SHG(Self Help Group) in your own city bcoz stammering can't be cured in Isolation. So I started looking for some PWS in jammu .I searched on internet,social networking sites like Orkut,Facebook etc. Finally I was able to find 3-4 pws on orkut who were from jammu. And i sent them messages and scraps.But 2 of them replied to those messages and only one of them was really curious to do something in order to cure his stammer.His name is Aditya. He Has just completed his Engineering in IT this year. We had a meeting on 2nd september,2009.This was our 1st meeting, so it was ma duty to Motivate the other person in the same way as I was motivated by Sachin sir and JP at Dehradun. I told him each and everything whatever I learnt at Dehradun.I told him about "Acceptance", to love ur stammer and dont be ashamed of ur stammer.I also explained him some of the techniques such as Bouncing,Prolongation,Easy on set,Slow rate of speech etc. Our 1st meeting lasted for about an hour.Then on our way back to home ,I told him that I have got some very good and interesting Documentary movies on stammering that I got from Dehradun. So if he wants those movies and videos ,I can bring those DVDs in our next meeting. This was just the starting of our 2 member SHG in jammu. I am hoping more PWS in jammu to join this group and help each other .

First report from Banglore SHG ! Congratulations..

The first meeting of the Bangalore SHG was held on 13-Sep-2009 at Cubbon Park. The meeting was coordinated by A and he had asked all of us to come to the Library building at 11 AM. I started from home at Marathahalli at 10 AM and reached there by 10.30 AM. Usually it takes one hour from my place to Cubbon Park, but since it was a Sunday, the traffic was less and I reached there in half an hour 

By sharp 11 AM A reached the building and K was waiting there. I went to meet A and he introduced me to K. K is the person who is running the Bangalore stammering group in Orkut. After some time, one more person named K joined us making it Double K or K square, whatever you wish to call. This new K is a business man and is running an advertisement company of his own. It was really a good thing to know as normally stammerers or at least I, shy away from entrepreneurship. After some time we were joined by P and S. N who was supposed to join us was getting late and we decided to move to a corner where we could meet comfortably. We reached a corner of the Park where there was a small hut, but it was occupied by somebody who was sleeping there. We decided to occupy the place close to the hut and sat on the ground.

We started by introducing ourselves and by that time K-1 got a call and he went to bring N. By the time they came back a few of us had completed the self introduction and we had to repeat the same for them. Since it was the first meeting, the self introduction took a long time and most of the time was spent understanding each other.

It was pointed out by N that the treatment in Nimhans, Bangalore is free of cost. He was attending treatment there and he told he would be able to help us in getting an appointment there, if anybody was interested. He told he acquired this habit when he was in seventh standard and that he was a good speaker and an actor before that. Even now he speaks very fluently and it was very difficult to identify his stammering.

It was told by K-2 that since he was running a company of his own it was necessary for him to make a lot of phone calls and market his services. The necessity has removed the fears and he stammers very less due to that. The same point was corroborated by A when he told one of his cousins also could overcome the issue to a great extend by taking up a sales job. He was a severe stammerer and he had to take up a job of selling credit cards as the entire family was dependent upon him. He gained confidence gradually and now is in a senior post. He stammers only very occasionally nowadays. It seems taking up jobs which are dreaded by us really helps in reducing the issue.

By 12 noon K-2 left for his drama rehearsal. He told, it gave him immense satisfaction becoming somebody else on the stage and that he didn’t usually stammer on stage. N was interested in knowing the details of the drama as he was also an actor.

It was decided to have the meeting every Sunday at 10 AM at the same venue (Cubbon Park). We dispersed by 1 PM after playing the game of telling words aloud based on the last letter of the word spoken by the previous person, something like Anthakshari. It was decided to share the experiences of different therapies and practice some of the techniques in the next meeting. We may also do some public speaking practice by asking each person to talk about any subject of interest for 5 to 10 minutes. It was also decided to bring some people who have overcome their stammering to share their experiences.

Editor: To be on safe side, we have suppressed the names in the above report. If the group lets us know otherwise, we will keep their wishes in mind. The group should also give a contact email and phone number (preferably of the group coordinator) so that other IPWS can get in touch with them.

Two days in Delhi

12th Sept: Nitin picked us (JP and self) up and then we went to visit an NGO close to Sarai Kale Khan bus stand. Deepak too joined us. The purpose was to negotiate for an indoor meeting place. We have drawn an affirmative. This would be a convenient location for many Delhiites. People coming from outside, could also reach it easily, if they arrive at Nizamuddin. This should take off by October 09, God willing.

Later, we had a nice lunch at Nitin's and then watched Unspeakable. Kshitiz arrived. An interesting discussion began: what does acceptance really mean? Intellectual acknowledgement? at emotional plain? at gut level? And if we truly accept, why or how would we work on our communication? Later, we practised some bouncing. Returning to Karol bag, in metro, we three (JP, Kshitiz and self) happily bounced on names of various destination. A middle aged man sitting across looked on, with interest and, I guess, something bordering on admiration. We had a good time. I wish I could bring our Herbertpur SHG for a ride in Metro combined with practice session!

13th Sept: By 11 am both JP and self arrived at Akshardham temple. Others too arrived- Sikander, Nitin, Deepak, Mamta, Kishore and Nishant. We made pairs through random slips. Everyone had to find their partners, learn about them in 5 minutes and then introduce them to the group. Extreme importance of active listening came up once again.

After introduction, we used a reverse story telling game as a warm up exercise and to practice bouncing. After some fun, when everyone felt ready for "stuttering interviews", we went out in pairs and interviewed some visitors who were waiting in the que to enter the inner precinct of the temple. Most interviews went well. Some people were possibly under some kind of stress and were not very enthusiastic. We thanked them and moved on to the next potential audience. Mostly, the questions were: What do you know about stammering? Do you personally know some one who stammers? Do you feel any stress / problem when you talk to those who stutter? How are you feeling now, as I am talking to you and stuttering? What advice would you like to give?

Lastly, we asked them if they knew what they were supposed to do while talking to someone who stammers. This last question gave us plenty of chance to educate them- quite a few of them, in fact. Cross gender interviews were also done. After the interviews, there was a de-briefing session.Lastly, we did an impromptu nukkad natak (street play)- a SHG meeting where members have different concern and values. Then we dispersed.

Later, I learned that K did not stop his interviewing adventures, even after leaving Akshar Dham. He spoke to couple of more people in the bus while returning home. Ah, that is the power of "desensitisation"!

We waited another hour or so, waiting for Anuj, who was returning from Karnal that morning. Finally he arrived and we talked and talked till we decided, it was 'Chhole and Rice' time. Three of us traveled to CP (in metro, we again made a regular nuisance of ourselves- JP and A shouting - I stammer! ) where A joined us at "Hadippa" board! A was having a lot of difficulties. Obviously, after his brief stint at Samagra eight months ago, he had ran into difficulties. He wants to come out of his "denial" but his family (especially father) thinks he is fine, since he talks fine at home. The father has no inkling of the difficulties A is facing in interviews.

Anyway, we three worked with him in the CP park, conducted a mock interview, with at least 20 feet gap between us, forcing A to shout his answers above the traffic noise. He seemed more cheerful as we left. A and A will make nice sparring partners and I have set them up with each other. If they could meet twice a week and practice as suggested, both will benefit.

AJ came all the way with us to station. JP and AJ discussed many issues, as they are in a similar stage of life. I know, many main stream doctors will raise their eyebrows- but sharing and discussing with someone who is passing through the same experiences can be quite therapeutic. In this sense IT has harmed people: we are spending more time online- and less time talking to buddies, family, neighbours, pets, passer by, strangers. May be we need a java script even for that! (not joking)

Dilli Dur nahin..

JP and I are finally in Delhi for 12 and 13th Sept (sat + sun). We can be contacted at these four numbers - JP (09897730641, 09271205627), Sachin (09412058272), Nitin (9818350799), Deepak (09810656719). IPWS are always welcome. We will be staying in Krishna Market, Karol Bagh.

My "cure" is linked to your "cure"

Today Sachin introduced me to metaphysical meditation, where he gave me a thought :
"In helping others to succeed, I shall find my own prosperity. In the welfare of others, I shall fnd my own well being" by Sri Sri Paramahansa Yogananda
to ponder upon and think why this saint said such a thing ? Do I really believe it is true? and also explain my answer.Initially, it was really difficult to focus only on this thought when sometimes I got distracted by various sounds (rains, chirping of birds etc..) and my own various unwanted thoughts. I thought that it is true only in some cases. A gave an example to support that too. One of my friend used to spend so much time helping others before every exam that he never had time to prepare for his own and so used to score less.So, you can say that he never found prosperity in helping others to succeed. But the flaw with this argument is that we are linking prosperity just to a result of a few exams and seeing this in a very narrow context. Actually if you see his present situation, he is doing something which he likes and has become an expert in his domain in a very short time. Now the question arises why is this so? It like if you throw a stone in a pond, the waves will originate from that point and come back and terminate at the same point where they started. This analogy is true for the waves of our good work also, which will come back to us. Also at metaphysical level all of us are part of just one atma (soul).
Also another explanation for this would be that when a person works selflessly for others, he is putting in some efforts, which makes him strong (both mental and physical) and knowledgeable and when the time comes to work for himself, only a little effort will bring great results due to his experience and strength.
Now the question is: why am I sharing all this with you? It is because I want to tell you that as a person who stammer (PWS) if we work for other's cure, we get cured indirectly. Which I have observed in my own case. So we should try really hard, until helping others without any expectations becomes a part of our natural self. This will give you immense joy and pleasure.

Pune SHG- Alive and Kicking !

Hi Everybody !
i wish to announce with pride that we are growing in number. we have all sorts of fun. each one of us is coming up with his/her unique ways of tackling this problem. slowly we all are realizing what kind of hidden talents we have but never got a chance to showcase them. yesterday and the week before, we discovered that Rupesh is not only a good singer but a great shaayar too. Amazingly, he never shows any signs of blocks when he sings. so we inferred that there is no physical deformity that casues stutter at the first place. Much of this problem is emotional and situational. we had a very new member joining us this week, who was informed by a old member, both happen to be classmates in engineering college. we helped them with the interview tips/techniques. Each one of us have also practiced the impromptu speech in front of a mock audience to gauge our stage fright and how to go about it. surprisingly most of us did very well. After winding for the day, one of our member said, "I wait anxiously for the whole week to attend this session". This made me realize how important such gatherings could be. To see a person joyful gives a positive vibe, but there is nothing more gratifying to know that the reason for his/her smile is you. Let us all become a reason for others to smile forever !

My first public speech after a long time!

Please follow my speech to read the blog.

Dehradun SHG meet - 6th September 2006

Please follow SHG meet to read the blog

Two day Session On Stammering in Delhi!

Hi all,

Sachin will be in Delhi on 12th & 13th September to conduct a two day session on stammering. Venue details will be posted in 2-3 days, right here.

It will be a great opportunity for people who stammer to learn various ways to help themselves and for people who don't stammer to know more aboutthis mysterious neurological condition.

Please book your calender.


P.S. Sachin is a 52 yr old "recovering" stammerer and has spent many years studying the causes and cure of stammering and helping people who stammer. He is one of the founders of The Indian Stammering Association(TISA, stammer.in)

First step..

From yesterday, Me and Parmanand have taken up the task of going out daily, in the real world and talk to people.As I have observed with me, I can bounce, prolong and do all kinds of things in Ashram and with people I know, but its difficult to do that with strangers.Hopefully very soon, both of us will conquer this Mount Everest.