- The Obsession with Perfection

By Sabah Saeed
A few days ago, I was invited to hand out certificates to girls with hearing impairment who had been trained as professional beauticians. The Guest of Honour was a young beauty queen whose opening statement to the girls was, ‘Nobody is perfect ….’
These girls had put in six months of sheer hard work, fought with prejudice and bias, yet here was someone telling them that they weren’t perfect! I’m sure the young guest was just trying to raise their confidence; the idea of perfection being similar to what millions of others have, that of living up to someone else’s standards. How sad, our own life; yet the standards are set by someone else!
At a study at UCLA Medical Centre in the USA, it was found that there is a significantly longer gap of time in bringing a child born with disability to the mother in comparison to that of a “normal” child …the “perfect” child. The obsession with perfection starts right from the time we’re born. There must have been very few mothers who haven’t counted the fingers and toes of their little ones the very first time they set eyes on them. And it is this idea of always being perfect and doing the perfect thing, that too perfectly, that we grow up with. The perfect child, the perfect student, the perfect spouse; the list is endless, so much so that we are almost afraid to do anything anymore because we might not do it perfectly.
I remember how my brother’s first grade art teacher chided my mother because he drew an umbrella ‘like a walking stick’. According to the teacher, he wasn’t fit for her class. Later, my brother explained that he drew a folded umbrella because the teacher didn’t mention that it was raining and nobody opens an umbrella when it isn’t raining! The very next thing I remember was that we were at an ice cream shop and my mother was telling my brother that whatever came out of him was his creation. And it was perfect because it was unique; unique to him! Nobody can be a more perfect you.
And this is what we try to pass on to our kids at Ehsaas Foundation, a centre for children with special needs, where ‘unlearning’ starts before ‘learning’ begins. They unlearn whatever preconceived notions they have been fed with and learn to become the best themselves they can. Instead of drawing a tree as a lollipop, they draw their own tree, one with branches and holes and blue, green, red leaves. And, believe me, it’s the most beautiful tree you will ever see; if you’re lucky enough to see it. For to see it, you need imagination, which a boring ‘perfectly normal’ world doesn’t have much of.
Our children have never been part of a competition where there’s a first, second and third position. How can you really decide a winner from a bunch of beautiful trees? And it is together that they make a boulevard! Hence, we were skeptic when Talent Enablers, a National NGO for the promotion of Sports, Art, Culture and Environment, approached us to take part in a dance workshop by Shiamak Davar’s Victory Arts Foundation, Mumbai. What if our children were sidelined because they couldn’t perform like the others present there? But we decided to give it a try. And boy! Are we glad we did?
The two young trainers, Sneh and Kashish, were amazing with the kids. And the kids loved them because they let them be. The kids enjoyed the sessions because there was no pressure on them. The two professionals found a place for each child; a place that was perfect for each child. Our kids were not performing the steps ‘perfectly’ but they were doing the steps in a way that was unique to them; and that is “perfection” …doing the best possible that you can! And if you want to challenge the ‘conservative idea of perfection’, watch the kids perform on 11 July, 2010 at The Doon School Auditorium, where, I assure you, just like each tree is different, each hand will go up in a different direction yet you will gasp …that it is simply perfect!