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 Dr. Ambika Kameshwar - she's not the doc that sticks needles into you and makes you eat foul smelling and horrible tasting medicines. She is a doctor of dance - a Ph. D in Natya Abhinaya. She dons so many roles in her everyday life that she makes Superwoman look jaded in comparison. For the past eleven years, Dr. Ambika has been running the organisation called RASA - Ramana Sunritya Aalaya Trust - where she and her team of Women Fridays take care of a group of special children (words like 'spastic', 'cerebral palsy' and the like are a big no-no). Each day, they work with their special kids, using dance and music to help them with their motor functions and pre-movement skills.
Dr. Ambika came to Chennai in 1985, after her marriage. She grew up in Delhi and later, during her college years, in Bangalore. All the members of her family are staunch devotees of Ramana Maharishi and even when she was in Bangalore, she was attached to the Ramana Maharishi Academy for the Blind where she was invited to teach dance to the visually impaired. Right from the time she was small, Dr. Ambika was very much into music and dance and this helped her to communicate with the people at the Academy. She taught Bharathnatyam to the visually impaired - it might sound like an Himalayan task but to
Dr. Ambika, who feels that dance is a communicative force, it was just a brilliant way of communication. She would demonstrate each mudra and her students would feel her hands and imitate the mudra perfectly. They would measure her steps and do every single step she did without a mistake! After coming to Chennai, she volunteered to teach dance at the Spastic Society of Madras. She worked with people with cerebral palsy and she started modifying her technique to suit their needs.
 So what made her choose dance to help people with such problems? Says Dr. Ambika "dance is an all encompassing thing - it should not be restricted to performing on stage." So she took dance one step further and made it a tool to help people with problems like cerebral palsy, Down's Syndrome etc. She continued doing this for 3 more years and exactly 10 years back, started Rasa. On a trial and error basis, she perfected the methods that could be used to do what she's doing - the methodology where learning is made more fun and more active - she met a lot of physiotherapists and occupational therapists and structured the methodology that she christened Creative Movement Education. For the past ten years, she has also been training others who are interested in her work - teaching them the ways of Creative Movement Education. With this army of people, she mans the centre at Raja Annamalaipuram, where she even offers CME as a diploma - Post Graduate Diploma in Creative Movement Education.
So, how exactly does she work with her special kids? "Theatre is miniature life. It portrays life - and what we learn from it. But I work in the reverse - I use theatre to learn about life". Her battalion of kids range from 2 years to 47 years. The inputs are age relevant - the same method cannot be used on a 3-year-old and a 16 year old. For the 3-year-old that has problems with her pre-movement skills, she sings a Tamil or Telugu song (she's very particular about being
uni-lingual and teaches the kids in their mother tongue), all the time shaking her head and twisting her hands in tune with the music. Pretty soon, the child too follows her, twisting and turning to the music!
On the other hand, for a 16-year-old with cerebral palsy, she switches on music, hands him chart paper and paint and asks him to do 'finger dance' on the chart. She also uses her very successful method called "mirroring". She seats two kids with different problems and makes them imitate her actions - moving her hands and head to the accompaniment of music. Not only is this fun, it also gets her kids move their arms - something they have always had difficulty in doing!
 As
Dr. Ambika puts it, "there is no one with a disability; they are all differently-abled and it is up to us to tap their abilities." And music always makes it easier "as Mary Poppins says - a spoonful of sugar and the lesson goes down". Quite right!
Life definitely wouldn't be a bed of roses for
Dr. Ambika and Rasa - so how does she deal with the myriad problems that come her way? "Of course, we have problems - any organisation like ours will have two problems - funding and finding acceptance." For the first, she appeals to organisations like Lions Club, Rotary Club as well as the individual donors. But finding acceptance was more difficult - especially when she started out. It took her quite some time to explain the use of dance for rehabilitation and make people understand its usefulness. Now people have accepted her and Rasa and so what if finding money is a problem? "I do my work and at the end of the day, I know that no matter what happens, He (she points to Ramana Maharishi's portrait) will take care of it". And her eyes glow with sheer joy - and the firm belief that has brought her to where she is today.
Ask her what her work day comprises and you will wonder if she has an extra 10 hours. "I come to Rasa in the morning, be with my kids, organise my schedule, talk to my team and plan Rasa's activities, give lectures for the PGD classes, conduct workshops for the Rasa volunteers, meet
journalists like you (laughs), meet people who are interested in us, leave for home by 4.00 where I conduct Bharatnatyam and Kuchipudi classes, rehearse and if I have any, go for the recordings...." When does she have time for her family? "After 7.30 is family time! I play with my daughter and spend some "quality time" with her (laughs) and then may be watch a late night movie with my husband". Super Mom! She laughs when I say that.
Then she explains the "rehearsing and going for recording" bits. Not only is she an accomplished dancer, she is a great singer too - so far she has sung in as many as 120 devotional tapes released on Ramana Maharishi and 4 - 5 solo albums. She has also released a collection of Tamil nursery rhymes and plays for her kids called "Paadi Varum Pookkal".
 I am still flummoxed as to how she does it all. She laughs her characteristic laugh and says "it is easy, you know. I once read in Reader's Digest that "change of work is rest". That's what I do - I keep changing the work I do, I don't do the same thing 24 hours and that balances everything. I'd probably be real serious and worried if I was doing one thing only - but I play with my kids, dance, sing and do so many things that it never gets tiring. And even if I get tired, I just go and give my kids a kiss - and my day brightens up immediately!"
As I was leaving, I was struck once again by what a bubbly soul she was - with the kind of life she leads, she must be saddled with more than the usual share of glitches but she goes through it with the biggest smile on her face and her springy step. Hats off to you, Doc!
Lavanya
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