School

This young man is Tamil Selvan, he is now 19 years old and I have known him since he was 5. I don't think I have ever seen him looking better than this. He is happy, engaged in his activity and even better he is talking to me. He has always had one or two words which he could produce if really encouraged. Today he spoke to me voluntarily and that smile....it speaks for itself. The extra is another image of him taken in 2013, still that lovely smile.
Today I spent time in school catching up again, I think I'm going to spend most time in the two youngest classes as the physio class which is what was the early intervention class has few children at present. The physio has been on maternity leave so her case load of younger children has dropped. Hopefully it will pick up again. My skills will still be useful in the other classes though I think.
This evening I met up with a young man who I haven't seen for 22 years. He is now a doctor in Hyderabad and looking very well too. He saw from my journal that I was in India and by chance he was teaching just an hour away so came by bus and took me out to dinner. Last time I saw him was when he stayed with us in 1998 in the UK when he was studying for his PLAB exams. Lovely to catch up with him again.
It was a day for catch ups. I was sitting with Anand in the restaurant when a group of four people came in. The young woman seemed familiar and as we were about to leave I turned to her and asked if she was who I thought she was... I hadn't seen her for 4 or 5 years. It was indeed. We caught up in particular about a mutual friend who has been seriously ill. Sadly she leaves tomorrow, but what a wonderful evening of catching up. To put it into context, Tirunelveli has a population larger than Edinburgh's, I had never been in that restaurant before and there were only 6 other people there. Wonderful, I've learned to seize these chances, if I had been wrong it wouldn't have mattered.