Learning, Unlearning, re-learning

 

“Hit it and drive it away Parvati for god’s sake. How do I work if this rascal keeps barking? Kill it by all means I don’t care but I don’t want to hear even a leaf rustle….”

He was never like this before. This irritable, angry person that he had become. Gautam had been into competitive swimming with Swimming Federation of India and was a remarkable gymnast. His quarter at the academy campus in Delhi was adorned with a pyramid made out of the cups he had won. A photograph, among several others, was captured in a frame of him making the winning dive into the pool. There was another highly ornate but blank frame resting on his “pride” shelf. He had purchased it in advance to capture his yet another winning dive in the upcoming federation cup. It remained blank. His last dive was a dive into darkness, uncertainty and years of yearning for a reason to live.

He was physical very strong and thusly for the initial few months he remained quite hopeful of his recovery, after he got paralyzed waist below due to the tragic accident at the swimming pool. He suffered from Lumbar spinal cord injury which rendered his lower body lifeless. He listened to doctor’s advice carefully, underwent as many physiotherapy session as he could, tried perceivably hard to project his former ebullient self.

Gradually he started getting sucked into the quicksand of despair. The initial visitors from the federation; friends, colleagues, competitors; were now replaced by peons who dropped by to deliver the mails that were addressed to his account at the academy. His physiotherapist had started looking at his wrist watch more frequently during their sessions. His sessions got shorter, with no visible improvement. He had no close family members to be with him, but he had a good rapport at the federation and that’s how he got Parvati, a 40 something woman, as his care taker and occasionally his stress ball

“..…but I don’t want to hear even a leaf rustle.” Parvati rolled her eyes in a routine fashion and dashed out of the house, picked up pebbles from the garden and threw them at the dog which barely missed it but scared it enough to stay away from the house – for some time.

“You don’t own the street Mr. Nehra, and I can’t keep going out on the street to drive away every dog that barks or breathes.” She retorted from the garden glaring at Gautam who was sitting at his desk by the window of his room facing onto the street.

Actually it was just this one dog, not “every”, which had got on Gautam’s nerves with its sporadic barks every afternoon, when he worked on the administrative tasks that the Federation handed him for he had bills to pay. The dog used to bark right in front of his house in the same sporadic fashion every afternoon even before the accident. But Gautam was never around during that time to notice it. On days when he was around, he didn’t bother to spare anything more than a meteoric one sided smile of amusement.

It had been a week since this routine started. The dog that looked like a poor man’s German shepherd, would arrive, who knows from where, on the desolate street on which Gautam’s quarter was, sniffing the path all along. Occasionally raising his head up he lets out a bark then turn in a different direction ,moves a few steps ahead, barks again, waits for a moment and turns around to go in a different path .  The poor man’s German shepherd had caught Gautam’s and Parvati’s attention for his erratic behavior. They suspected it to be a dangerous diseased creature.

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The poor man’s German Shepherd arrived quite punctually on Gautam’s street the next cloudy afternoon and started barking in different directions moving jerkily to and fro. Gautam lifted both his legs one by one with his hands to adjust his position on the wheelchair and furiously wheeled towards the outer gate which opened on to the street. Parvati was scared for the dog’s life and rushed behind Gautam and asked rhetorically: “How are you planning to harm the poor thing in any manner. By glaring at it?”

 Parvati pitied the confused thing on the street, while Gautam, more so, hated it. Probably because at some subconscious level he had started to compare his life with such diseased low lives, which had no significant reason to live except to survive the time on this Earth. His desk job at the federation was no consolation for his morale as he saw it as a stale chapatti thrown at a stray dog, not out of love, neither pity, but just because that’s what they are for. This proud man had to kill his pride with every morsel of the “chapathi” he ate. Gautam was still strong in his arms; after all he was an adept swimmer and Gymnast. After a year of therapeutic help he could in the least pick himself up from a lying position using just his hands and place himself on the wheelchair which Parvati strategically placed for him. Once it happened that he missed his mark by a couple of inches and fell down. Parvati rushed to his assistance but stopped short looking at his expression, both angry and scared giving out a silent order, “..Stay there, I’ve got this.. But please don’t go”. Parvati was amazed to see Gautam pull himself up with the force of his arms and managed to drop himself on the edge of the bed. But his legs were dead to him. In a way he had disowned them for their betrayal.  For two years he had been carrying their weight around. Twice he tried to stand up on his own but suffered a fall. The Doctor gave a strict advice against such adventurism as it would put his spine at a greater risk.  At some point during this time, Gautam gave up all hopes of standing on his own legs ever again, let alone swimming.

Gautam stopped with a jerk a couple of feet away from the dog hoping to startle it. The dog didn’t even cringe a bit. “Woof” it barked and a moment later started jumping in excitement. Gautam tried to move forward but was stopped by Parvati’s hands on the back of his chair. Both had a good look at the crazy thing and were amused to see that the thing never opened its eyes. They remained closed.

“Don’t go any near Mr. Nehra, this thing is bad news. Let’s go inside it might rain” Gautam gave her a condescending look and moved closer to the dog out of curiosity. It had a collar with a metallic label - “Simba - Anubhooti”.  It didn’t look like a rich breed – poor man’s German shepherd. The dog started jumping playfully on Gautam and on Parvati who ran back inside the house. Gautam turned back towards his quarter as the dog followed. He let it.

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Night had befallen. Parvati had left for the day. Gautam never took his eyes off the dog. He was sure now that Simba could not open its eyes. He kept watching the dog in muted astonishment. It barked and sniffed most of the time moving around in the house with unsteady steps. Eventually it found the most spacious part of the house and settled down for a nap.

At 11pm, Gautam woke up with a startle and found himself still sitting at his desk facing not the window but the spacious area in his house where napped the dog who would not open its eyes, only that now it was standing on all fours, fully alert, facing the door.

“How!!??” He wondered out loud.

He had dozed off and was awaken by a loud blow of whistle somewhere nearby on the street. It had started drizzling. Simba barked approaching the door and with another blow of the whistle he grew excited and barked incessantly. Gautam wheeled towards the door and opened it. Simba ran straight to the outer gate and stopped exactly where he should have to avoid crashing into the gate.

Another “How!!??”  He opened the outer gate as the dog dashed towards the source of the whistle.

 

Gautam didn’t recognize the woman with the whistle but he did recognize the man with her.

“Hello Neeraj. Your Dog?”

“My sister’s.”  He motioned his hands towards the woman with the whistle who was by now being assaulted by dog saliva all over her face, but didn’t complain a bit.

“Annie.. Meet Gautam. The best our academy has ever seen.” It felt like a blow below the belt. Only this one, he could feel. Neeraj was his competitor to look out for in the glorious years.

She pulled herself away from the dog’s grip and let out her hand. Gautam took it.

 “Yes, I have heard about you. Anubhooti” She introduced herself with a warm smile. “I am sorry. Did he bother you a lot?”

He didn’t answer. “I think you should come inside and wait for the rain to stop.”

“I’ve got this.” Gautam almost snapped as Neeraj started to push his wheelchair.

Anubhuti thanked Gautam for letting Simba rest in his house.

“You see I am visiting Neeraj here for a couple of weeks. And since its safe here in the academy I let Simba free in the afternoons to explore the place around by himself. But I guess today he got tired and chose to rest at a good man’s place such as you.”

Gautam had explained Neeraj and Anubhooti the events of the afternoon over coffee. With a bit of hesitation he asked her,

“Why does Simba never open his eyes?”

“Coz he doesn’t have them.” Came out a very casual reply with the same warm smile.

“Doesn’t have what?”

“Eyes” She shrugged her shoulders speaking as a matter of fact. “Ah... I am sorry. My bad. I keep forgetting that it’s difficult for other people to understand. Let me explain.”

“I am a dog breeder. But I ran into a bit of a bad luck with this little sweetheart.” She said reaching out for Simba resting next to her chair on the floor and stroked his forehead.

“When he was born prematurely, we waited for a week for him to open his eyes. But he never did. We were told that his eyes weren’t formed. I was disheartened but couldn’t come up to terms with the idea of putting him to sleep. And so I decided to raise him.”

 

“So Simba is blind. But how do you explain his moving around like any other normal dog?”

“I understand your curiosity. This is not the first time I am explaining Simba to someone.” Warm smile.

Gautam had never spoken as much to any one since his accident as he did with Anubhuti that rainy night. Some chord was struck in him by the events of that afternoon.

 

“You might have observed that Simba barks a lot and moves in a jerky manner. There is a phenomenon called Echolocation. Simba is highly sensitive to smells and sounds, more than a normal dog. But what sets him apart is that he can listen to the echo of the sound that he creates and based on that he locates different objects around him. Trees, traffic, people, obstruction, anything. His movements are jerky at an unknown place as he has not marked it yet, but once he does he can move around without you having to worry about him.”

 

“But it’s unbelievable. Who taught him the phenomenon? It’s all too scientific.”

“It’s not at all scientific. It’s natural. Its evolution. Its adaptation. Simba does not pity himself for being blind. He does not know what being blind feels like. He knows no eyes. For him the whole world is the same as him. Nature taught him how to move about when there is simply darkness all around. It’s difficult for us humans to believe that such an existence is possible because we have a preconceived notion that we need to see objects around us because we have eyes. That you need legs to swim.”

Gautam was taken aback at this direct reference to him.

 

“Imagine if you were born without legs. Would you know what legs felt like? No. And if you had the passion for life, for swimming, nature would have helped you.”

 

“Why doesn’t the so called nature of yours help me now?” He retorted.

 

“Because you don’t let it. You have all this memories and notion of how complete and valid you felt when your legs were alive. The secret behind Simba’s amazingness is his sheer ignorance of his blindness. You need to forget that your legs ever moved. Only then your body will learn to adapt. Have you ever seen an amputee walk on their hands? Have you ever seen a painter with no arms holding the paint brush between his lips and paint a masterpiece? It is enlightening Gautam. It’s unravelling. “

 

Several minutes of silence was broken by Neeraj-“The rain has stopped, I think we should make a move now.”

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Gautam locked the wheels of his chair at the edge of the 7ft deep pool and sat there in his swim shorts in silence staring at the water for a long time. This pool had taken away 2 years of his life at its prime, and he was there to reclaim it. He remembered the last dive of his former life – a dive into darkness, uncertainty and years of yearning for a reason to live. He found that reason in an animal – the poor man’s German Shepherd- Simba.

No, the reason to live will not be to bounce back to fame, to win titles and prove his physical superiority (well, who knows?)But this time, he chose to live to explore and harness the internal superiority of a human body and soul. He chose to actually “live” to celebrate the ability a soul to adapt itself with any circumstances it is faced with. To keep on unlearning, learning and relearning.

With that thought in mind, he let out his one sided smile of amusement and took the leap of hope, off his wheelchair into the pool.

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