Ma Sem4 Paper-4 Disability Studies

ISABELLA THOBURN COLLEGE
LUCKNOW
DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH
SESSION-2022-2023
ENGCC-401: Disability Studies
TOPIC- Discuss the themes of pathos and dilemma in Pramila
Balasundaram’s Sunny’s Story
SUBMITTED TO-Ms.Bhavya Pant

NAME- VAISHNAVI SINGH
CLASS- M.A. 2 SEM-4
ROLLNO- E/21/17
UNI.ROLLNO-2110385480047
Mrs Pramila Balasundaram is the Founder-Director of Samadhan and has a Masters in English
Literature and Semantics, Bangalore University. She is trained in Drama Therapy under Dr Sue
Jennings, founder of Dramatherapy movement in the U.K and she has underwent hands on
Experiential Training course in Germany sponsored by Lebenshilfe, which helped her to launch
her NGO.
She was appointed as President of YWCA in Delhi in the year 1993-94. Mrs Pramila has both
national and international recognition and is currently the First Vice President of the AFID
(Asian Federation for the intellectually disabled. Earlier, AFMR). She has won two major
international awards: an Award of Recognition in 1998 from Inclusion International, the world
body advocating for persons with intellectual disability at their World Congress in the Hague
and an Award for Innovation from world Bank in 2002 for effective linking of issues pertaining
to disability, women’s empowerment and poverty. On 25 June,2011 she is honoured & awarded
with `Hind Prabha 2011`by Uttar pradeshya Mahila Manch for her active involvement and
participation in humanitrian services,social upliftment and womens empowerment in national
welfare.
Mrs Pramila Balasundaram has authored several articles and contributed to national and
international journals and presented papers in more than twenty international conferences.
Sunny’s Story, a fiction based on a true story was released by Dr Kiran Bedi in April 2005 and
was written to fund some of the services of SAMADHAN. Nationally, she is a member of the
Local Level Committee of t he National Trust for Guardianship issues.
Pramila is the founder of SAMADHAN, an NGO set up in 1981, which shaped Sunny's Story.
She has received both National and International recognition for her work in the form of awards
from Inclusion International (a world of body advocating for persons with mental handicap) and
the World Bank. Sunny's Story, based on facts, has been woven into a fascinating narration that is
evidence of Pramila's own vast experience, which has made possible the obvious sensitivity and
love with which she see's her protagonist. She brings out the pathos and dilemma's of families
who have children with intellectual disability gently. If there is one thing that connects Sunny's
various adventures it is a reiteration of God's amazing grace, reaching into wholly unimaginable
situations in which Sunny finds himself. It is also a statement of Pramila's own faith and her
personal witness to God's grace in her life.
Sunny's Story, based on facts, has been woven into a fascinating narration that is evidence of
Pramila's own vast experience, which has made possible the obvious sensitivity and love with
which she sees her protagonist. She brings out the pathos and the dilemma of families who have
children with intellectual disability gently. If there is one thing that connects Sunny's various
adventures it is a reiteration of God's amazing grace, reaching into wholly unimaginable
situations in which Sunny finds himself. It is also a statement of Pramila's own faith and her
personal witness to God's grace in her life. "Sunny stood out as one who might be "a gift from
the gods", sent to remind people to open themselves toward their unknown little brother." (Mike
Miles, researcher and practitioner in the field of disability in South Asia).
Disability Studies and Sunny Story
Disability Studies is an inventive area with sound intellectual and professional foundation in
social sciences, humanities and rehabilitation sciences. Disability can be defined as those who
have long-term physical, mental, intellectual or sensory impairments which in interaction with
various barriers may hinder their full and effective participation in society on an equal basis with
others. The present paper begins with a brief introduction about the field of disability and its
relationship with like Feminism, Postcolonial etc. and to show the portrayal of different types of
disability i.e. visually impaired, physically handicapped, psychological/mental disability etc. in
Indian English Fiction with special reference to Trying to Grow by Firdaus, Clear Light of the
Day by Anita Desai, Family Matters by Rohinton Mistry, Sunny’s Story by Pramila
Balasundaram and Shame by Salman Rushdie. Disabilities are not to be viewed as conditions
needing to be cured or healed, but rather as differences to be accommodated and accepted.
Disabled and abnormal individuals have historically received positions of alienation. A minority
status has always been placed in opposition of a prescribed, majority-based notion of what it
means to be able. If one is perceived as unable, he or she is pulled out of the community and kept
away. The actual experience of disability and how able-bodied people look on disabled people as
‘Other’ as different from them and not as an individual. The disabled people are always treated in
different way, either people go out of the way in being nasty towards the people with disability or
go out of the way to be nice to them. The portrayal of disabilities in Literature undergirds the
exclusionary environment and the discrimination that disabled human being faces and warrants
the flight from disability. Disability Studies seeks to challenge our collective stories – our
cultural representations – about disabled human beings. The WHO definition of this concept
summarizes the most common understanding of the social model: Disability is not an attribute of
an individual, but rather a complex collection of conditions, many of which are created by the
social environment. Hence the management of the problem requires social action, and it is the
collective responsibility of society at large to make the changes necessary for full participation of
people with disabilities in all areas of social life As Literature informs and informed, it also
includes the sites of people who suffer any kind of imperfectness and how this imperfectness is
treated as disability. The so called society that uses the term ‘special’ for the people with the
imperfectness at one hand, assume their role in society as a waste on the other. It’s not the
imperfectness of the people that create problems to them in adopting the world as their own or to
the world that belongs to them but the society that snatches its hand of help when they are
needed for a disable person. People are impaired, society disables: “Disability culture is the
difference between being alone, isolated, and individuated with a physical, cognitive, emotional
or sensory difference that in our society invites discrimination and reinforces that isolation – the
difference between all that and being in community. Naming oneself part of a larger group, a
social movement or a subject position in modernity can help to focus energy, and to understand
that solidarity can be found – precariously, in improvisation, always on the verge of collapse.”
(Petra Kuppers 109). The analysis of the literary texts will draw out the tension and indifference
that is constantly at play in the Indian context between modern ways of knowing disability that
are audible in the rights discourse or visible in the form of ramps and wheelchairs in public
spaces, as well as the “non-modern” or “cultural” ways of knowing corporeality. The textual
analysis also inspects the role of narrative prop that disability plays in the literary texts and
recommend a more context sensitive as well as critical application of disability studies theory
that frequently tends to further itself with a universalistic claim.

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ISABELLA THOBURN COLLEGE

SUBMITTED TO-Ms.Bhavya Pant

participation in humanitrian services,social upliftment and womens empowerment in national

Local Level Committee of t he National Trust for Guardianship issues.

personal witness to God's grace in her life.

adventures it is a reiteration of God's amazing grace, reaching into wholly unimaginable

Miles, researcher and practitioner in the field of disability in South Asia).

Disability Studies and Sunny Story

disability i.e. visually impaired, physically handicapped, psychological/mental disability etc. in

needing to be cured or healed, but rather as differences to be accommodated and accepted.

that frequently tends to further itself with a universalistic claim.

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