CHAPTER 1 : FLASHBACK

Memories about my childhood are almost vague. Some appear to be distinct, but on a closer look they too are really vague. My memories are rich with numerous 'faceless' people; they come and go randomly and in utter confusion. Then I ask few questions like Who are you? When and where did we meet? Did we communicate each other then? etc. I get answers too, but they are full of contradictions! Some are questions back to me!  So I am unable to derive a clear-cut picture, of all the incidents, happened in my childhood days. (“There are two radically different things, both of which are commonly called MEMORY. The past survives under two distinct forms: first, in motor organisms; secondly, in independent recollections. For example, a man is said to remember a poem if he can repeat it by heart, that is to say, if he has acquired a certain ‘habit or mechanism’ enabling him to repeat a former action. But he might, at least theoretically, be able to repeat the poem without any recollection of the previous occasions on which he has read it; thus there is no consciousness of past events involved in this sort of memory. The second sort, which alone really deserves to be called memory, is exhibited in recollections of separate occasions when he has read the poem, each unique and with a date. Here can be no question of ‘habit’, since each event only occurred once, and had to make its impression immediately.”— ‘Matter and Memory’, Henri Bergson).

Finally I decided not to look back to escape from contradicting stuffs. A sea of worthless memories - I thought. If I keep looking back, I may hate the memories about my childhood; or even the very concept known as 'Memory'. It is better to keep my brain clean from the cob webs of vague and troublesome memories. I have to keep my brain healthy so that it can make wise decisions when time comes. Brain can be like a villain, too, when its decisions fail, and so needs careful handling. So I let my brain entertain only those clear and colourful recollections. I got a few such memories. I wanted to gain a better turnout. But not all our wishes are destined to realize. Some will, of course, fall short of realization and then they become our ‘expectations’. Such expectations can strengthen us to strive hard for a better life.

All incidents which I clearly memorize about my childhood have a remarkable feature. In all of them, I am a complete man without any physical drawback or limitations due to that. I had every opportunity possible and I enjoyed equal considerations everywhere. I communicated and quarreled with my friends just as normally. I heard songs in Radio; heard sirens from factories in exact volume. I enjoyed stories told by my grand-mother. Yes, the external world was accessible to me in all possible ways. I enjoyed all those to the maximum extend. This is the picture I have of my early boyhood. A ‘lost paradise’, we can say, now.

Then my hearing capacity began to erode. The memories from that point in time are blurred.  Hearing loss was gradual and everyone, including me, failed to detect it on time. At first, whenever I tried to listen carefully to something, I could hear a peculiar noise inside my ears - a noise, very unclear and indescribable. That sound was so unfamiliar to me that I could only say that it was not the sound of any beasts, not the sound of howling wind or not that generated by any musical instrument. In short, this noise seemed to be generated from nowhere in this world; but it is being heard myself, whenever listening deep into my ears. I could only experience it, but could not explain its nature to others.

This mysterious sound settled in my ears, permanently. This was the beginning of my hearing impairment. Unfortunately I failed to notice the gradual diminishing of my hearing ability. Classmates whispered each other - 'Sunil's hearing ability is weak. He is becoming deaf'. But I turned a deaf ear to all those remarks. I quarreled with them whenever I happened to hear them say such things. I relentlessly tried to convince my friends that I am very normal in all respect, just like them. But nobody paid any attention. Then more and more people started muttering about my disability. At first, I stared at them; then I stared at my own body. I began to doubt myself. Is something unusual with me? I couldn’t find an answer to this question and so again I attempted to correct my friends, thinking they were getting me wrong. But all my attempts in this respect went futile. My friends hesitate to believe my words. This caused utter disappointment to the thirteen year old boy. It was about this time that the outside world shrank around me. I could no longer enjoy the radio songs clearly... no longer hear the siren in exact amplitude as before... Everything changed for me. 

This is where my story begins. A cold start indeed!

  

I had gone through a number of transitions in my life. I grew from boyhood to youth; went from school life to college life; shifted from the old home to a new home; then left the native land to live & work in Bangalore. All these changes in my life were accompanied by emotional transitions too. The toughest of all these was the transition from the ‘Non-disabled State’ to ‘Disabled State’! It was terrible. It happened when I was just 12 year old. At that tender age, my heart was not ready to accept the bitter truth; it constantly tried to resist the fact with all its might.

Finally everyone accepted my loss of hearing; they started considering me as a person with hearing impairment. Yet, I lived in another world, where I was a ‘perfectly normal person’, all the time hoping them to change their approach and attitude towards me. I waited for that to happen. Months passed by. But nothing happened as I expected. I was desperate and was in sheer confusion. What should I do? Should I behave like a deaf person or a normal being? If yes, for what? For whom? Is this curse going to be a permanent one? I really don’t know how to convey all those apprehensions I went through at that time.

It took me a couple of years to accept the truth. Yes, I am a man with hearing impairment. I matured enough to become fully aware of my predicament; to become fully conscious of the implications. It hurt a lot! 

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.