The wonderful life of Amalia & Aqil
A chronicle of a 12-year-old boy's struggle with dyslexia and the discovery of his talent has been made into a book, and the story is now to be adapted into a movie. The recognition and success that Aqil enjoys now as a prodigal young artist did not come easy. His story is one heard often within Indonesian family households that glorify formal and scientific intellectual achievements over artistic expression and talent. Aqil is the son of Amalia Prabowo, whose family has a strong lineage and pedigree including some of Indonesia's greatest intellectual minds.'The family considers education and intellectual achievement the top priority. You need to have at least a doctorate degree for them to consider you worthy as a family member.' While it is clear that Aqil is a brilliant and talented artist, he suffers a condition that makes it hard for him to earn recognition and respect from his mother's family. Aqil suffers from dyslexia, giving him great difficulty in reading, writing and calculating math equations.
For a year after the diagnosis, Amalia distanced herself from Aqil, simply because she did not know how to reach out to him. At that time, Aqil was already in a therapy program to help with his writing. Through this therapy Aqil honed his skill as an artist and learned how to express his feelings through paintings. 'The problem with dyslexia is that it does not allow Aqil to properly connect a letter with its form and patterns. The therapy therefore aimed to familiarize him with patterns.' Aqil and his mother Amalia Prabowo, who says it is easier to communicate with her son through his paintings. 'He was asked to draw a lot of circles, boxes and other patterns on a large piece of paper. As time went by, he became bored, so the therapist and I suggested he draw a form or a character first then fill it with patterns to alleviate his boredom.' Eventually, he began to create characters, hundreds of them, in his paintings. 'Each character was given a name and a story,'she said. One particular painting made her realize her son needed her by his side.
'In that painting, Aqil drew a character that represented him. Then I asked him 'where is Mommy?' and he said, 'Mommy is nowhere to be found because she always leaves for work,' 'Amalia said. 'That was when I learned that Aqil's paintings had opened a way for us to communicate better with one another.' As Aqil continued his therapy, his paintings grew in number, and their quality rose too. Aqil's journey in dealing with dyslexia and finding his talent has been published as a book entitled Wonderful Life. The book will be adapted into a movie, to be released in October 2016, by producer Angga Sasongko, Rio Dewanto and Handoko Hendroyono, directed by Agus Makkie.
The movie will educate other parents of children with special needs on how to deal with their issues in the right way. 'Parents often accuse their kids of being lazy when they have trouble learning at schools. Often, that's not the case. In my experience, every kid just has different talents and their bad marks at schools do not always mean that they are lazy.'