AFVOA Newletter August 2020

Section 5 - Memoirs CV 2 No. 02 / 2020 Page 100 of 237 More than anything else the work that has given both my husband and myself immense satisfaction has been in the services provided by Madhuram Narayanan Centre for Exceptional Children, an early intervention centre for children with intellectual disabilities and with associated disabling conditions, age group 6 years and below. This was established in December, 1989 and to date has reached out to over 6200 children with different degrees and levels of disabilities, 90 % of them from economically and socially disadvantaged homes. Of an extraordinary good event that could happen was the release of the Early Intervention Programme,” Upanayan (meaning “to lead along”) by St.Teresa, then Mother Teresa at Calcutta in 1994. The centre has won several awards at both national and state levels, and its services internationally accredited, by well known professional organisations and academia. Mother Teresa releases Upanayan and blesses the program, flanked by Air Vice Marshal V Krishnaswamy and me. Like several senior citizens of today, I live by myself, alone, but certainly not lonely, and as able bodied as one can be of my age. I look forward to every day with the hope that it will be better than the previous one, grateful for the most beautiful years of my life as a service officer’s spouse and living to chronicle the happenings of the historic decades that have passed by.