Thiruvananthapuram: There are two women who had turned up without fail at Irfan’s house for the past six years. Apart from his parents; he had responded to the voices of Anita Nayakam and Padma, resource persons with Samagra Shiksha Keralam, who did acupressure for Irfan . Both of them are trained in holistic treatment and were entrusted with the job in 2012 and it had begun with sessions by Sam John, a teacher at Government School for Deaf , Jagathy.Currently employed at Kaniyapuram resource centre, they took turns to be there with Irfan, six days a week. Irfan who would not respond to anyone but his parents would loosen his folded arms for them as they would slowly apply pressure at specific points in his body. “Normally he would always tighten his grip and never responded to anyone but his parents. If he was asleep, we would tell him that we are going to take his arms and press them. He would open his eyes then,” recollects Padma, one of the resource persons.Normally they were tasked with home-based education for bed-ridden patients. With Irfan they had to redesign the methodology. When propped up, Irfan would drag himself to their lap. The teachers would tell him jokingly, ‘Okay, now that you are in our lap, let’s go to school’. “We always hoped he would one day go to school. Every minute sign he gave us were so heartening,” said Nayakam.When they spotted him paying attention to their bright coloured sarees, they had the entire room decked with bright coloured LED lights. They even made a small nursery of his room, pasting pictures of birds, fruits, alphabets to give an impression that Irfan was actually in a class room like any boy of his age. “Like his parents we did our best to make sure that he didn’t miss anything although he was confined to a room,” said Padma.Four months ago, the portion on his abdomen which was intubated had developed wounds and they had to stop acupressure. They didn’t stop coming though. “We would come here and massage his body. We had developed a strong bond with this boy although no words were ever exchanged between us,” said Nayakam.

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