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Because it is 26th January today, and the Supreme Court recently passed this resolution I remembered an event in my life from half a decade ago.

I was attending a trip which had been organised by my coaching class for my engineering entrance exam. We were visiting a special school, for special children, which is a common metaphor for the mentally retarded. It was quite an unusual choice for a trip, but our coaching class was unusual in quite some ways.

Five minutes into the campus and I was bored already. We were made to line up for a prayer that was about to begin and strictly asked to maintain complete silence. Already disgruntled 18-year olds that we were, We soon began to lose patience. So Naturally, my mind was in a very biased state and I began to look at what was happening around me in a very bad light.

I watched as the teacher-volunteers brought the students one by one, holding them by their hands. It is quite easy to recognize mental retardedness by facial expressions. Those looking into nothing eyes, Those blank stares, faces devoid of any emotion and yet with an air of naughtiness. I watched as the ‘special children’ kicked, shouted, pulled and refused to be organised into lines.

The question ringing in my head was this: ‘Why was this institution, which was occupying quite a large area, which could easily have housed a real school was wasting its time and money, on these special children, who were always going to remain special (Autism & Mental retardedness are incurable) Why were they wasting resources like land, manpower & Money on these children who were never going to contribute even a little bit to the development of the world?

The prayer got delayed as the teachers-volunteers finally managed to squish them into lines. It began by the National Anthem and everyone became silent. As we began, the teacher-volunteers shifted to attention, letting go of the special children. Then, one of them shouted loudly, a loud languageless shout, and the chaos began. Some of the special children began to jump, some joined their voices in the shout. Two or three even went as far as sitting down, and one literally lay flat on the grass below. Almost all of them were covering their ears, not liking the loud drumbeats accompanying the anthem and by the time we reached ‘Jay He’, almost all of them were shouting.

In eyes of the society, what they did was wrong, but no one said anything because the children don’t understand. As the National Anthem ended, I git the answer to the question I had in mind. Why we help mentally retarded children is not a social help or support, but rather a form of worship. It is a worship to that human spirit, which these children possess, the spirit to not acknowledge rules and do only what one’s own mind desires. And in today’s so-called civilized society, where this spirit has become rare, we still can’t help but be in awe when we see it being displayed by these children. And that is why they are special, and that part of them is what all men should respect.

Content with the answer, I joined my hands for the next prayer…