INTRODUCTION - PART 1

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.