By Jose Kavi

Chandpur: One of the most cheerful persons I have met was Tannu.

She was 14 and wheel-chair bound when I met her five years ago. She was a star at Sanjoepuram Children’s Village, one of the few institutions in India for inclusive education. The “village” managed by the Faridabad diocese of the Syro-Malabar Church is at Chandpur, a sleepy village in the Faridabad district of Haryana and 52 km south of central Delhi.

With her withered legs dangling from her chair, Tannu greeted everyone with a smiling “Jai Yesu” (“Victory to Jesus”) in Hindi.

There was always a rush around her when she came out of the chapel or a classroom.

Young and old jostled around her, competing to push her wheelchair to Rani Sadan, one of the seven houses within Sanjoepuram. The orphan girl lived there with eight other differently abled and four normal girls under the guidance of four sisters of the Franciscan Clarist Congregation.

“One finds Tannu smiling always,” said Sister Jesmy Paul, a physiotherapist nun who had brought the girl as a three-year-old child from Tihar Jail, India’s largest prison, situated in New Delhi. “We have no details about her parents,” she added.

Tannu said she felt great there. “I hope to walk one day, because Sister Jesmy Paul is giving me physiotherapy,” she said optimistically when I met her.

Sister Paul said Tannu was indeed walking to school when she left Sanjoepuram on transfer in 2007. “We had massaged her legs day in and out from the day she came to our house. She responded well and managed to get up and walk.”

After Sister Paul left, there was no one to continue physiotherapy and Tannu’s condition worsened. So, the nun was called back to resume physiotherapy.

But all that did not worry Tannu.

“I want to be a teacher,” she said. She was quite sure of her future.

She said she could be at the top of her class if she could write a little faster. “In school I find it hard to write, so I am a bit behind,” she said.

Tannu came to talk to me from the TV room, where she was watching the live telecast of the canonization of two Indians at the Vatican.

She could speak Hindi, English and “a little bit” of Malayalam, her mentor’s mother tongue. However her favorite subject is English.

She sang well mostly Christians hymns that she picked from the church. After a little persuasion, she sang with a quivering voice: “Lord, come softly and take me into your bosom. Stay with me and give me great happiness. Let peace bloom within me.”

Tannu, who is a Hindu, says her only desire is to be baptized. Her reasons were simple. “Jesus died on the cross for our sins,” she told me. “He loves children a lot.”

On Sundays she used to go to the main chapel with others for Mass. She also attended Mass on Thursdays, when it is offered in Rani Sadan.

Tannu said she liked to pray. “I talk to God about whatever comes to my mind. I pray mostly for help in studies. I also pray for my companions and those helping them.”

Like others, she also got up at five in the morning. “I manage everything myself,” she said. “If I find something difficult to do, I get help from others.”

She did feel sad during vacation, when others went home. “I have nowhere to go. I have an uncle who visits me occasionally. But he does not take me home because his wife does not like me. She scolds me a lot.”

She does not remember her parents. “I was told that I had a brother and my mother gave both of us to different people when we were infants.”

Sister Paul said they were trying their best to make Tannu walk again. “If physiotherapy does not work, we will find if she could be helped through surgery.”

With such an optimistic mentor, Tannu hoped to walk to her future singing, “Lord, come softly and fill me with peace.”

It is people like Tannu who brighten up December 3, the International Day of Disabled Persons.