SHG Meeting & Some Food For Thought

Rahul and I met again today. For a long time now, our SHG meetings are held just between two of us. Taking a few lessons from the workshops, and other SHGs, today I had come for the meeting with a few things planned.

Rahul turned up a few minutes later. He had a spark in his eye and confidence in him today, which I quickly noticed as soon as I started conversing with him. He said that there were a couple of reasons for it - One, he had successfully answered roll calls during his college lectures in the week gone by, without asking his friend to answer the same for him. Two, he said he has learned a lesson with regards to speech and stammering. He narrated it with the help of the incidence that happened to him. I would love to narrate the same in a nut-shell: Rahul was busy with a college project last week. The project was something in Robotics (interesting!). Rahul was very much enthusiastic about the project, and enjoyed it very much and was dedicated to complete it. Just a few days before the completion, one of the ICs of their Robot blasted. They had to replace the same immediately. Rahul took the initiative, and found out about the shop where the IC was available. When he reached there with his friends, he found that the shop-keeper had pulled the shutter down. He knocked the shutter and told the shop-keeper how urgent was it for them to buy the IC. The shop-keeper was kind enough to oblige. But what was the lesson that he learnt from all this? That – when one is totally engrossed and deeply involved into his/her work, or when one is enjoying and passionate about the task at hand, we tend to forget about the stammering and the related apprehensions and anxiety. Rahul didn’t stammer at all when he was speaking to the shop-keeper, or when he was talking to his friends while doing the project and during those days, because he was passionately engrossed with this project. It is only when we pay more attention to stammering, the emotions start erupting.

This is a lesson and a food for thought for all the PWS.

We then started with the exercises that I had planned for the day. We did the following things:

1. Belly breathing. We practiced belly breathing by holding the hands against the tummy, for 10 mins.
2. Prolongation (Vocal) Exercise. We listed out 5 words starting with a vowel each. We then practiced by saying the words by prolonging the starting letter for 4 seconds. For example: Aaaaaaaa…..fter.

We then tried a small exercise for Rahul to help answer his roll calls. I uttered the roll numbers, and then Rahul had to say his roll number when it was his turn. I uttered the roll numbers till 52… and Rahul uttered 53.

Rahul then told me that he had still not called Sachin Sir because of his phone-phobia. But he said he had a few queries to Sachin Sir, and wanted to speak with him.

We then had a brief chat on speaker-phone with Sachin Sir.

As it was time to leave, we both were relieved after a satisfying SHG meeting. Rahul said that he felt really motivated after speaking to Sachin Sir. He also said that since he has started attending the SHG, his stammering has decreased and confidence level gone high, just by meeting and talking to other stammering people like me and Prakash.

Wishing Rahul all the very best for his project presentation in the coming week.

PS: Special Thanks to Sachin Sir for always being there with all the help when we need it so badly.