23-year-old Dhanya has penned 32 keerthanas and dreams of being an RJ

Dhanya has a disarming smile that even cerebral palsy could not rob her of.

The smile belying her age, however, is also deceptive of her steel will to reduce her physical state to a minor irritant. Her resilience found another manifestation when renowned playback singer K.S. Chitra released an audio CD of 32 keerthanas penned by her at Sharjah last month.

There is a doggedness about the way the 23-year-old pursues her passions — be it listening to music and mythological stories or penning stories and poems for children. But she’s largely dependant on her parents Ramanan and Sunitha for moving around.

Mr. Ramanan, originally from Thrissur and employed with Dubai municipality for the last 30 years, had initially toyed with the idea of sending his only daughter to special schools in Dubai. “But those schools mostly had mentally-challenged children while my daughter only suffered from restricted muscle movements. So we opted for home schooling and she is now doing Class 8,” he said.

Ms. Dhanya is mostly cheerful and active on social media with three Facebook pages to her credit. While she has published all her 32 keerthanas in PDF format in one page, another page dedicated to stories for children features eight small stories written by her. According to her father, she has so far written nearly 72 stories.

The youngster is now experimenting with poetry for children. Her latest Facebook page dedicated to poems features one of her three works.

For someone who loves to laugh, Ms. Dhanya dreams of becoming a radio jockey or a television anchor someday.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Kochi / by M.P. Praveen / Kochi – March 08th, 2019