Caring for 16 year old baby to his mother

Manuguru: He is a 16-year-old boy; yet his condition is like a new born child. He is dumb and his limbs are dysfunctional. He is not aware of hunger or other feelings. His pathetic mother knows how to nurse the ‘baby’. This is about the third son – Alex – of Maya Srinivas and Devakarna of Samitisingaram in Manuguru mandal. The couple has two other sons; the eldest son is pursuing his M Tech and the second one, post-graduation.

Srinivas is employed as a teacher in a private school and hails from lower middle class family. The mother has been nursing her third son for the past 16 years right from the moment he gets up in the morning until putting him to sleep at night.
To the question “Whom does she like of her three sons?”, pat comes the reply –Alex. He does not know what hunger or thirst or joy or sorrow is. She says that she alone will be able to identify when he feels hungry.

Out of their meager income, the couple took the boy to various hospitals in the state -- Bhadrachalam, Khammam and Hyderabad – and spent lakhs for his treatment. At last, the doctors at Niloufer Hospital after conducting many tests, said that there exists a membrane that separates the big and small brains. As a result, the mental development of the boy is stopped. The boy has to be given life-saving drugs throughout his life for survival. The family is spending Rs 1500-2000 a month on medicines for the boy.

By A Chandrasekhar