Today I went and saw the mentally retarded kids getting trained by a certified special olympics trainer opposite my house. I went in hesitantly but I was welcomed by a kid and grown up retarded guy. I asked the trainer what was at the root of retardation and the treatment for it. He told me a great many things. I was interested to know because I felt retarded. If those kids were 1% normal and 99% retarded, I was 99% normal and 1% retarded. The only difference between me and them was in the percentage. He told me that while money was available to an easier extent, the opportunities for these kids to make a life for themselves was not there. He told me that while these kids compete with normal kids or do a regular job, they can do jobs that suit them. He made a very valid point that if they cannot get some sort of job from the vocational training that they get, they will go back to their previous state. He said money was available more or less but opportunities was not available. These kids can do simple jobs like being an office peon. Even a 3% job reservation quota approved by the government for the disabled did not include people with retardation. These kids deserve it more than the creeps who demand reservation based on caste, sex and religion. One kid was quite intelligent. He warned me of a lizard behind me. It seems that he had a violent history every day before but now only once or twice in a month. The tragic thing was that while the trainer was a sympathetic man, he was totally insensitive to the kid standing next to him and told me that these kids cannot become normal. The trainer may have thought that the kid will not understand technical terms like mental retardation but I noticed that the kid was listening astutely. The only other person listening as astutely as he was me! I wanted to get a hint about getting out of my own retardation. And then I told myself that I too have to just look-out for job opportunities that I can do.

What to write when words are not enough to say everything one wants to? If there was some way to photocopy the mind, it will make life easier. To say anything is to risk saying too little. But on the other hand, I believe it is more my lack of courage in looking at life straight in the face that I don't want to say anything. I once read Chandrasekhara Saraswathi Sankaracharya saying that a mother understands that a child wants an orange even if it says "onge".

People can accuse me...you have all the facilities but still you are not contributing. I try to and I make progress inch by inch. While externally I have hardly any problem, internally I have to get around many mental blocks.

The Self

The Self is the golden ball of flame. What is seen is but one portion of it. The others are the selves...some nearby, some far away and some lost in darkness. For the self to know about the Self is joyful. To come in contact with It is happiness. To merge in It is bliss.

I don't know what to write. Maybe not knowing is a sign of a quiet mind. Good night.

I find it difficult to trust another because of my ex. But I don't blame her. She had her reasons. I live inside myself. I don't know if I can ever get over my retardation. My uncle had an ailment similar to alzheimer's disease. He went lonely and depressed after one of his two sons left home forever after becoming manic. Another son of his is a very nice guy who is close to me but he too is depressed. He isn't smart but is very hard-working. My uncle's daughter was depressed too after marrying a guy who suddenly started disliking her immediately after marriage. Only my aunt is not depressed but she is sad in her own way. In his last years, my uncle went aloof and after a point didn't bother talking to others. One month before his death, me and my mom went to meet him at the hospital. The doctor said that his brain had shrunk. When he saw me, he became very happy and had tears in his eyes. I think good old memories must have come to him. But though he tried to speak, he couldn't do so because it had lost all capacity to do so from non-use. But he could hear what we said. It was sad for us to speak to him but not for him to respond. I told him that everything will be alright. I knew then that he was not going to last for long. My aunt, the traditional Indian woman that she is, just wanted him to be alive long enough before she died a sumangali, even though she had to sometimes clean the room when he defecated unknowingly. They were financially poor too. On the 10th day after my uncle's death, his daughter-in-law caught a flight to UK. I told my cousin that from now on, everything will be fine for their family. He has a got a very strong wife and a nice kid.

I don't know but I feel kind of like my uncle. I just cannot relate to anything any more in this life. I have lost the capacity to feel even.

I sense people loving me and doing their best to help me but I am unable to relate to them. I live inside myself. I have pain. I also believe that it is darkest before dawn.

To Odd...

 

चेश्मा उताकर फिर देखो यारो

I don't know what to say.

My counselor once said...when one let's go of oneself, one doesn't sink but is kept afloat by a buoyant force.

Dear Arvind,

It's okay.