Special games for special people

NEW DELHI: K Fahmeeda is 22 years old and hails from Tamil Nadu. She is an athlete. She paints, loves Bharat-anatyam, Kathak and folk dances.
In 1997, she won an award for dance in Kansas City, picked up a silver for athletics in North Carolina in 1999 and a bronze in 2000 at the international painting competition in Prague. So inspired was her mother when Fahmeeda was born, that she gave up her doctor’s job to found a school in Chennai which caters to 52 students now.
Yet, Rasheeda’s eyes fill with tears when she says, ‘‘I’m only the unfortunate mother of this girl.’’ And Fahmeeda responds, ‘‘Ma, won’t cry, please.’’
What could be so unfortunate about being the mother of an extraordinary achiever like Fahmeeda? The fact that she’s out of the ordinary.Fahmeeda suffers from Down’s syndrome. She started talking when she turned five, walking when she turned seven. Today, she’s here to participate in the Special Olympics (Bharat), the Indian chapter of the international Special Olympics, which began on Tuesday at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium.
The five-day event, which is the final leg of the national games for the mentally challenged, will see over 900 athletes from 22 states participating in several athletic and bocce events. A select 88-odd winners will head for Dublin, Ireland, in June 2003 for the world meet.
For the first time, the 11 events of the national meet were organised in seven cities across the country. The games were declared open by defence minister George Fernandes.
This Olympics is a milestone in the history of the country’s few but sure steps to integrate the variously-abled people into the mainstream. This becomes crucial since 50 million of the 170 million mentally challenged people in the world are from India.
‘‘The idea of the games is to allow the participants to highlight their abilities, not their disabilities,’’ said Special Olympics Bharat chairman Denzil Keelor.
Emphasising the need to integrate the differently-abled into the mainstream, Special Olympics Incorporate senior vice-president Thomas Songster said: ‘‘A special participant at one of the international meets was asked why she liked the Special Olympics so much. And she answered, ‘Because it’s safe. Nobody makes awkward comments or laughs at me here.’�