THE FIVE WINDOWS

The five windows

I am alive!

Because I am aware

On the difference between here and there

Through the five windows

In the beginning…

It was a flicker of light …

After what seemed to be

The endless night…

A glare of reality bounced of emerging objects

Of which a tiny fragment of it

Registered in my juvenile mind

…I must have thought to myself:

Twinkle… twinkle…

Little star

How I wonder…

What you are

I grew up to discover that

The difference between the enlightened man

And a frightened man

Depends

On the first person who would discern change…

To the shortest range

…It is perceived by the society

That an ‘able-bodied’ man

Is the one… in whom

The aggregate effect created

By the sensory impulses

Which are simultaneously drawn…by the brain

Stirs him to respond ‘normally’…

But it is an anomaly

That I grew up in a world

Where I had come to discard this notion:

‘…that any man who does not satisfy this biological process

Is a disabled man! Something is missing…’

For me

A window apparently shut down for one…

Could mean an increment

In the volume of the mind

Paralyzed; deaf; dumb… or blind

Does not correlate

With being handicap

I watched notable figure

On a tour in my town

He crossed the path of a ‘cripple’;

The last man standing

On the boulevard

The time was 1.am:

He braved the day’s stampede

And the night’s cold

Just to receive an autograph

On his journal

_ He was truly the number one fan_

The crowd of fans had dispersed long ago.

The man

Was making for the cab

Having finished his concert

_obviously unoccupied_

But I was shocked:

In a mockful scorn,

The celebrity ignored

The heartfelt gesture

From his number one fan

I was the only one

Who witnessed firsthand…

As events unfolded

I walked up to the dejected man…

The told me something

That changed my life:

From now on boy!

I will be my own hero.

…………………………………………………………..

The next day,

I saw a visually impaired boy walking along the corner

Holding some walking stick

Under the harsh rays of the sun

Wearing a tinted pair of glasses

I gaped…:

He spotted a ditch before him (without his sight).

The remaining four of the senses

Had assumed responsibility (I inferred)

Somehow the speed of light transmutes to sound

And he avoided the ditch

……………………………………………………………………………………………..

I heard an account from my math teacher

About an obstacle a woman did surmount:

This is an individual

Who many would have pitied….

It seemed as though

There was no photon of light

In her world

All her windows were shut,

Except the sense of touch_

She was even rendered incapable

Of literally smiling or frowning_

But still

Her lifeline was her paw

She used it find her way in reality

She used it to raise herself

To ‘mighty’ heights in intellect

She made it in life! In a grand style

And paralyzed her critics and suppressors

Once and for all

It is common knowledge that she read countless books

But it is a scary fact that she ‘read moving lips’…

His account seemed incredible:

My classmates found it uneasy

To grasp the theme

Of this true life story

I thought to myself

She wouldn’t be bothered if

No one draws inspiration…

From the signals she is sending

This is her reality;

She is a living legend!

From her story I deduced that

Life is embedded in logic;

Not thoughtless perception of the senses

…………………………………………………..

There would be no end

If I go ahead

To relate countless memoirs

Of physically challenged men and women

Who overcame great odds…

To leave indisputable legacies

Setting life records

Which I know

Would bring the best

Out of beings of lofty standards

I drifted from the theme

So I returned inward

The star I had seen

When I was a child

Made more meaning…

It ascribes perfect symmetry:

Light radiating concurrently…

Such that if the rays would return to the same point

If they drew backwards

I could picture five judges

On its edges of the star

Giving the same verdict

To effect order

On reality’s proceedings

And referring to the same code

In conclusion, the windows to reality

May be five or less

But a living being

Is oriented to reality

At some vantage point:

A logical standard spelling

Man’s disposition to the implications

Of life

With this new outlook

The journey of life has just begun

At blink of an eye

I see a visually impaired person

As one whose imagination is unique and beautiful;

I see a person struck with stroke

As a stoic;

I see a dumb person

As one who harbors a ground breaking speech;

I see the deaf

As one who hears in ultrasound

Even if the olfactory is shut down

The ether of dreams clings to the nasal walls

I have come of age now

But the experience

I gathered along the way

Had made me a better man

My senses have lived their lifespan

And I am glad I lived to disprove…

The myth the society once had

Of physically challenged peoples

It is as if

The windows are closing one by one

It may be my last blink;

It may be the moment

The doctor declares that I had passed away…

In blissful memory