It was on his daughter Jiya’s second birthday when Madan Rai first noticed that she was unlike other kids her age. He, along with his wife Rachna, approached a medical professional, and it was then that they first realised she had autism spectrum disorder. Years later, Madan Rai is a proud parent whose now 16-year-old daughter has gone on to become the youngest in the world to successfully cross the English Channel, that too, in record time.
This is the story of a father, a naval officer and his indefatigable dream to help his daughter claim the world title in para-swimming. “She can do what most able-bodied teens aren’t able to do,” he says proudly as he sits down for an interview, along with his wife, Rachna Rai, and daughter, Jiya Rai, at THE WEEK’s office in Mumbai. An unflinching faith in Jiya’s abilities, lots of patience and an ever-increasing hope that Jiya will one day be able to achieve the unthinkable led to her phenomenal victory, says her father.
This is not easy, especially for parents of kids who are differently abled. “As a parent, it is the most devastating to hear that your child is suffering from some form of mental condition. It took us six months to accept that she was not like the other kids. We worried about her future, and we never let her feel that she was any different,” says Madan Rai.
“The first time I saw her swimming was when I realised that she was abundantly gifted and that her energy needed to be channelised positively so as to help her get the maximum benefit out of it. We did not pressurise her for academics or anything at all. We simply went with her interests and realised that the only thing that made her really happy was swimming,” says the proud father.
Jiya’s swimming began with an hour of practice daily and slowly moved up. However, the one big challenge the parents encountered on the journey was that “Jiya would only listen to us. She would turn a deaf ear to her instructors, and that became the reason why I had to step in and professionally train her for competitive swimming,” says her father.
At the age of six, while she was in Class 1, Jiya won her first gold medal in swimming in her school.
Interestingly, her mother, who had never learnt swimming, trained herself in it only so that Jiya would listen to her instructions and swim according to a particular structure prescribed for her. “I installed a 54-inch TV, and we started showing swimming videos to Jiya, and that is how she learnt all four swimming strokes in the span of a month—just by observing the videos. By 2017, she was already a national level swimmer in the 1km open water swimming championships category.”
Madan Rai noticed that in any championship, his daughter would begin slow and then gradually catch up, which led the parents to make the decision that Jiya was better suited to compete in long races, which were over 5km, rather than short 100m or 200m races. That became a game changer.
In 2019, at the age of ten years and seven months, Jiya participated in the Open water sea swimming national championships at Porbandar in Gujarat in the 5km para category. At the time, she was below the minimum age of 14 years required to participate in the national championships. It was her first national event, and she was the youngest at the time. Yet, despite all the challenges, Jiya aced the race by bagging the first position.
As of today, Jiya holds 29 gold medals in open-water swimming. “Nobody has been able to beat her to date.” “One thing we took care of was to not pamper her just because she’s a special child. We treat her at par with our second child, and that helps. We learnt her ways, we learnt her manner of doing things, and accordingly, we changed our own approach towards her. For instance, we learnt early on that repetition was the only way to crack the code for her. Unlike other children, she cannot learn impromptu and in short intervals. She needs time to master her craft and understanding, which really helped us. Nobody in this fast pace of life has the time and the patience required to handle a special child, and that is why we took the onus upon us to help our girl carve her place in the world,” says her mother.
“All we ask for is respect for children like my daughter. I recall those moments when other kids used to laugh at her in the classroom and in the garden and how she would flinch at it. People tend to mock, ignore and humiliate such children as there is no awareness that Autism is not a disability; rather, it is another way of looking at life. These kids are not dumb or dimwits. They are very able, smart and intelligent; the only thing they need is the right environment which helps them grow and bloom.”
