When we
want to record the events happened at various junctures of our life, we have
two options - record them in a passive medium like the 'paper', or in an active
medium like our 'brain'. Both these recording media have advantages and
disadvantages. Brain, a vital biological organ, will not perish during our life
time, unless it meets with serious medical mishap. But with the passage of time
it can deteriorate, there by considerably reducing its efficiency for storing,
restoring or retrieving the data it accumulated through the sense organs. Our
brain may fail in recollecting the place or time of incidents of past or the
names of people we met. It may be holding all these information intact, but it
fails to bring them to our realm of consciousness with absolute clarity; thus
to us, those become vague memories. That the brain can store and hold
information, is a positive feature, whilst its failure to bring them back
(retrieve them) whenever required, is a negative aspect. Papers, on the other
hand, are trusted companions of anyone who are eager to preserve data in a
secure way. Consider a writer. He uses brain to formulate story threads, and
then writes it onto a paper. Papers are the best to keep data in vivid forms.
The writer can record anything on a paper, the trustworthiness of which
depending on the honesty of the writer, the beauty and versatility depending on
his writing talent. Risk lies in the form of accidental damages, theft, degradation
or decay due to environmental factors etc. If we can see to all these,
undoubtedly papers present a better storage medium than the human brain for
recording anything for future use. Clarity, reliability, accuracy are all well
preserved by paper documents.
I always
had a firm belief in the reliability of written words. I used to write diary to
record good and bad incidents of my childhood, a habit which I cherish even
now. Thus my personal diary is a record of many incidents that I faced in my
life. But if anyone asks: ‘Did you mention every incident that you faced
so far?’, then I really have to admit that my answer would be a plain
'No'.
I had a
past, when conversation and mingling with others was minimal. Then I spent much
of my time in solitude, often weeping over my fate. I started scribbling on my
diary on those days. I wished to yell to the world about the hardships
faced/facing by a boy with the disability of hearing impairment. To me, diary
writing was the only activity that I could conjure up, to achieve my goal. I
wanted to tell about the mindset of a boy who could speak to his ‘friends’ and
others just for about 4 or 5 minutes a day. I wanted to tell about
the despair looming large in his heart, which I thought, would be beyond
anybody's imagination. I lived in such hell for more than five years. Even
then, I never allowed myself succumb to total mental depression. My diary
writing helped me a lot in this. So now I value the effort I took for
that.
Every
action has a purpose. Every performance demands a reason. If so, what is the
purpose of this writing? The answer is that I wish to present the neglect and
partiality I faced in my life. Almost all may have faced these at one time or
another of their lives; they may feel smitten by these but for a short while or
to a shorter degree. But with the disabled persons it is a different matter -
they may feel and suffer from it to a greater extend. Surmounting their
drawbacks, these people may have acquired some expertise in some fields; or by birth
itself, they may possess an above average talent in some area. But when it
comes to employment, the employers always seem to be sceptical about their
abilities/capabilities; to their eyes the disabilities are much more pronounced
than what they actually are. They don't see what these persons can do; instead
they worry over what they can't do. This attitude of the employers forces them
to post these unfortunate people, much against their wishes, in jobs or areas
that need much less skill and expertise than they really possess. This
demeaning may make them lose their heart. There are two options for them -
either manage to jump over these hurdles to reach the finishing point
successfully or remain resigned to the fate. I chose the first one; that is, to
engage in an endless fight with the resisting and oppressing forces. I
wished to win. At the beginning, these fights manifested themselves as
eagerness in writing. I wrote down every single detail of day to day events and
experiences. At first, it was me only in this process - I am the writer, I am
the reader and I am the appreciator. But later I realized that this self-
publication and self- appreciation will not do. My writings will be absolutely
useless unless they are read by others. I decided to expand my realm of
writing, then. Pen is everyone’s last resort, whenever life goes hard.
I
started a project named ‘Some Unknown Tales’. But I was under constant stress
thinking how to convey all what was in my mind, with my limited language
skills. Conceiving ideas may be easy; but expressing them effectively or
putting them down in so many words without losing the intensity of our feelings
and emotions, is not that simple. It really needs good vocabulary, language
skill and experience to narrate the subtle ideas of our mind in a vivid style.
At first I thought of hiring a person who would write for me, if I convey my
ideas to him. But later it came to me that narrating every single detail to
him, disclosing even my personal feelings, may create further problems in
conveyance. So I decided to write myself.
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