Saturday 16 April 2011

What it means to be a disable


To start off with I’m a wannabe MBA and the genesis for righting this post comes from a horrible group discussion (GD) I had in the selection process of Tapmi. This year Tapmi has gd as an elimination round add to that I’m extremely bad at gds. Owing to the elimination condition the gd was one big fish market
It was the biggest fish market ever possible. Even the fishermen would run with their fishes.
I’m extremely bad at gds, and if it’s a fish market I hardly come in. So for the 1st 15min I was nowhere in the discussion. Every time doing the ”extending to what he has said” and 5 people are speaking and no one stops, my entire point got spoken out but no one noticed. I was all set for the embarrassment to leave the group after the process.

Thankfully at 1 point the panelist interfered and said our vocal decibels would not help and warned us, we got organized for a minute and that is where I gave 1 solid point.
Later again 1 more point and that’s it. Of the total 20min I had an airtime of maybe 30secs.The gd got over, I was all set to leave. The panel came in and announced the names that have been shortlisted, and surprisingly I made it

During the entire process I felt as if I’m a dumb literally or else the process has gone off to some other planet where my language does not belong. Interestingly I had a thought within the gd ”how would a deaf or a dumb participate in a gd like this”. As far as I know IIMs have reservations for disabled but exactly how is it that they go through the process. One If they have no voice to put or they can’t comprehend what is going on I guess he would be busy with his sign language in one corner while the discussion continues, if at all a scribe is allowed who is novice as far as gds are concerned he has no chance. On the hindsight being disabled and being special he might get an advantage with special emphasis being given to him
I continued the discussion with one of my friends and inevitably the discussion went to whether disables can be good managers. I reached to the consensus that the way they are managing their lives it indeed is a great bit of an MBA but honestly acutely disabled (blind, deaf, dumb) don’t stand a chance of being an able corporate manager. My friend who didn’t quite agree said you don’t know what it means to be one, as If he knew, but actually I have been there once and my memory faded back to the beginning of 2010

People who have seen me can describe my physical attributes in a single word “plump”. Well this tag has been attached since my schooling days and I hadn’t done much about it. Of late I decided, look now within a span of 2 years I would be pursing MBA in some other place, a new start a new beginning let’s do something about the plump thing before I start of there. So I frantically started yoga, pranayam, gym and what not. But I realized my diet has gone directly proportional to my efforts on weight losing. In spite of doing something about it I went hell bent on exercising. Increasing the counts everywhere every day, till one day I got up with a sore back
I’m a young guy, and young guys don’t have back pain so continued till couldn’t continue anymore. But the pain won’t stop. It increased and went up and up till a point that I was bedridden, my parents took a note of it, and honestly I was a bit paranoid for the first time
Initially I went for homeopathy, then saw a physician, got some x-rays, till finally dad came down and took me to a senior orthopedic at Apollo Kolkata .In the waiting room where young girls had come with their grandpas I had come as a patent with my dad. However in pain I’m, it doesn’t really express when I’m in front of some hot cute girls, but all I prayed was to save me the embarrassment, coz if the doc called me in front of them they might suffer some severe heart aches heart breaks
Slip disc it is, so be it, almost everyone seems 2 have it ones, my both maternal uncles had it, my neighbor had it, nothing to worry, take rest will be fine.
But things got worse. At one point one or the other leg used to get completely frozen. Moving around in the house, basic stuff became a nightmare. It was then I realized what amount of effort it goes into picking up a phone that’s ringing across my bed. You need to first turn and look where the phone is, move your upper part of the torso at snails space, rotate the one leg that’s good hold the one that’s not good, twist it bend it, scream a whisper and then you are up. Time passed medicines changed and over a month has passed. Mind it this was an important year for me, I had CAT in 9 months time, had joined TIME and missing out the initial few important classes, pressure from college was rising all this adding to the gravy.
By the end of feb, I was sick of stinking in a room. Visitor’s sympathy that used to sound good initially started irritating me. I saw my mom in a new light who amidst all the tension owing to me was at her best ,doing every little thing, right from running the phone down to me, to get me a mug and a tub to clean my hands post meals, making me more guilty of my arrogance and ignorance that I had.
But I’m an optimist, I’m a hell of a positive person, 2 days I have joined swimming and I have already started reading success stories on how to cross the English Channel. I looked at the positives. Now that I fall in the physically handicap category, I could get through IIM in a meager 90 percentile. People including my mom would never scold me again. At least for the next 2 years I will have whatever I want for in the meals, my pocket money is bound to go up
I also decided that I would go ahead with my life, I remember telling my mom on my bday(25th Feb) that if by the end of this month If I don’t walk again, get me a wheelchair and think I’m a handicap but I have to go ahead, 1st march, whatever happens I am going to time again .I saw some videos by nick vujicic, read some inspirational stuff and almost all kind of disable personalities found a place in my YouTube downloaded videos.
I also ignored the cons, of all the things I could never do in my life (one of my idiot friend told me I would never get married and stuff) coz I knew somewhere deep in my heart that I would be fine someday. When I was in class 8 I was a great fan of WWE. I remember once when Triple H had hit HBK Shawn Michael at his spinal cord with a sledge hammer and he had been confined to a wheel chair, weeks later amidst all that tremendous background music and the euphoria he jumped up from the wheelchair and kicked it away. Now I know it was all doctored but having seen that at that point of time it has etched in my memory now, besides having seen my quota of inspirational Hindi movies where the hero gets up as far as he has legs, even the English classics like The Curious case of Benjamin Button has a similar scene
Honestly I knew I don’t have polio or anything like that its just silly disease and would heal soon
By god’s grace I met Dr AK Pal at Peerless Kolkata who just by seeing my condition said I had Sacroilitis a simple bone infection that would go away with some cheap medicines and it did. And it did so fast that in 2 days time I walked up the stairs till 5th floor for my TIME class on 1st march (Damn the diseased lift)
Having said all these I feel extremely lucky that it wasn’t permanent. My heart goes out to all those people who are not that fortunate. I have started taking special care of myself and have become more cautious (not about my diet though) .Whatever happens, any disaster, anything that was not what I expected I still thank god for giving me eyes to see these wonderful things, ears to hear all the music life has for me, tongue to speak my words of wisdom and every other part intended to do what they should
I cannot help but feel distressed when I think of the disabled around me. All I have learnt from this entire episode is to value whatever we have, coz we are not going to no its worth until we lose it

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