A Letter From the CEO of BrainBrsitle

Dear Friends, Family, Supporters, and Do-Good-ers of this world,

Happy Diwali. I'd last written to many of you in March of 2022 about all that was just beginning to brew at BrainBristle, my think tank for children on the spectrum of autism, we were so young then, barely babbling, and I was SO excited then, barely a CEO.
A few of the kids I started with then, are still with me, and some I lost in my growth transition from my home/ office in Bandra, to our new headquarters at Soho House, Bombay.

My thinking and my experiences of working with children on the spectrum for what felt like a lifetime now gave me some fundamental ideas, that I had played around with earlier, but had never had the luxury of full fruition since I was never ever really before a CEO.
Today, as someone with full reigns of BrainBristle, I don't wish to scale, but simply create an example with 10-12 children on the spectrum of autism in Bombay, on some possibilities of what we might not have fully explored for our autistic kids in India.

Here are a few principles I have established in my work, which I reiterate to myself, as I function, fall, learn and evolve-
1. Almost 70-80 percent of the time teachers spend with children on the spectrum of autism caters to managing their core behaviours of ADHD, violence, stimming, lack of socio-emotional reciprocity, building relationships, and their multi-sensory needs rather than their education.
To mitigate some of this noise, I choose the first table to the left, with two tall lounge chairs, a bookshelf to our side, a sturdy coffee table, in the lounge of Soho House, as my workstation, to a] make exit in case of extreme behaviours/ seclusion yet inclusion/ distraction-free work easy b] help my children learn and break behaviours through osmosis of whatever those surroundings are c] stimulate their senses with beauty, banalities, niceties, good manners, clean linen, high fashion, freshly fried fries and the smell of coffee for the 90 minutes I spend with them 3/4 times a week- and then leave the rest of the exposure they need to our world and what it'll bring along for leftovers.

2. Money spent and raised for teaching tools for children on the spectrum is more zeros than I can count on my two hands, so just as I had done for the last many, many years of my life, I make my curriculum and my teaching tools what you and I consume daily and then play with the deep-rooted emotionality and sullenness that I find with most kids on the spectrum that I know.
What usually consumes us fully for the 90 minutes we spend studying is-
British caricature books mocking concepts like dating, mindfulness, and beauty; interesting, engaging news of all kinds; The Office reels and comic strips; Bollywood, of course; beautiful writing; badly structured writing; beautiful French, Greek, Italian, Indian, Black history and art books; math through the stock market, through football, ManU/ Liverpool/ Arsenal/ Chelsea rivalries; reading likes and comments on popular people's posts; reading love stories, [a genre I personally enjoy]; exposing them to the visible lives of big people from across the world for them to choose, discard, reject, respond, mock, yawn and meander; one of my kids calls them a menu card, I take an oath to never, ever repeat anything they say to anyone I know.

3. The first signs of autism are a lack of eye contact and socio-emotional reciprocity, back in 2009, I used to take my kids on busy trains in New York, to banks in Hong Kong, to local Chinese hot-pot restaurants, to busy shopping districts, to Buddhist monasteries, to award shows, to big conferences to shake them into reciprocal attention- but this exposure still didn't feel enough to help them grow.

So, the one thing I couldn't do well enough until now by myself, that the peeps at Soho House do is, it turns them to decently mannered, social toes.
I worry soon paid paparazzi will be papping my cutesters with Bombay's glitterati around town- my child-protection radar is always on HIGH ALERT, their parents nudge me for that, they say, 'Khelne do, na' ['Let them play, please'].
I've established, I'm the absolute least fun teacher to be around.

4. What will sell? With every other child we raise, we think of their careers, ambitions, their life paths logically, we think about will their professions yield them reasonable respect, respite, and an income- I have no idea why our radar goes south when it comes to children on the spectrum of autism.
I solely and only teach them what will sell well - not sell because they're autistic, but sell because it is perfect, it is excellent- music, dance, art, filmmaking, photography, writing, poetry, prose, bits of history, memes, cartooning, design, everything I can possibly, humanly learn, source or teach that could have a larger social and market value- I teach it to them- so one day, they're known for more than their values, more than their goodness, more than their cuteness, more than their godforsaken autism, so one day they are known for a minuscule mark in the economic, political and social structures of this world.

On these few principles, I play and see how long we evolve, grow and go, I'll write again in a few months and let you know how we fare 🙏

As always, ALL ideas, all advice, and all emails are always welcome, I am a part of every possible WhatsApp group, social club, women's club, professional club, autistic club, gentlemen's club, gifted club, math and science clubs, neurodivergent club, dark web club, meme makers parole, my high school kids unending group chats and all possible mailing lists you can ever imagine or know, I get so many emails and messages a day, and surprisingly, to my own surprise sometimes, I read each one of those. [I'm bonkers, I know]

Each one gives me ideas that I sometimes hadn't thought of- so nothing you suggest to me will ever be overlooked, it might get rejected, but not overlooked, I promise you, for sure.

On that note, all my love and respect for reading all the way until here, I hope my kids will soon be young people you know but don't even realize that they grew partially crookedly crankily on a lounge chair over flat whites and sweet potato fries and my fourth paranoid diet coke.

Happy Diwali.

All my love and best wishes,
Devangana

Khar West, Mumbai 400052

devangana@procurementleague.com

BrainBristle is a think tank to push a few select children on the spectrum of autism into some form of genius or giftedness.

This release was published on openPR.