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The story of Shilpa is the story of a gentle young girl.A
beautiful little bird, born with clipped wings,who in her short life, did
her best to soar.Tiny and fragile,with a congenital ventricular defect(hole
in the heart), subject to frequent attacks of fits, she was also severely
mentally disabled (with an IQ of below 20). |
| Her parents, Harimohan and Pramila, both doctors themselves,
began their uphill quest to make their little girl's life as normal as that
of any child. They took all the medical advice they could get, joined groups
of parents who shared their plight, in the hope of finding answers. With
special schooling, she could say a few words and by the age of 4, began
to walk on her own. |
| When she was seven, she successfully underwent open- heart
surgery. Like all children, she was full of little delights, enjoying pillion
riding with her Dad on the motorcycle with the wind whipping her hair. She
went to hill stations and movies, hotels and on shopping trips with her
mother , loving and living each day to the full. Her heart condition had
healed but she continued to be racked by increasingly frequent bouts of
fits. At the age of eleven, after one such attack, she slipped into a coma
, never to recover. Shilpa left this world on 1st December 1995 . |
| A child's story - as short and sweet as a nursery rhyme .
Once heard, never ever forgotten. Shilpa,the little girl, through the aching
sense of loss she left behind , blossomed into Shilpa, the Society for Mentally
Handicapped. On December 1st,1996, on the first anniversary of her death,
her parents with several friends ,pledged to share their experience and
give free service to other children like her in their daily struggle against
mental disability. Shilpa lives on. |
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