"As I moved my three wheeled Cycle Rickshaw Dumpster to the next house, I could see the inhabitants barely up, moving around in slumber, the maid had just arrived and the house was waking up, it was 6 am in the morning, it was my job to get the trash out of their house and dispose it off. I was deaf since birth and because I was deaf I couldn't speak, I had barely managed to get this job through the President of the Welfare Association and despite the fact that it was lowly it was all I could manage."
The person I write about above in first person is a real person, Subhash, a cleaner and garbage collector in a residential colony in New Delhi, where I stay, he probably stands out as a live example of how unfeeling a society we are, "like I care," a common phrase heard all across Delhi, as long as I get to eat my McDonald burger, kids go to public schools and my life is all OK, I am not going to be worried about how the have nots work their lives. Some years back Subhash just appeared in our lives from nowhere, a hardworking person, very dedicated and eager to work, he was employable like nobody else we knew. So what if he couldn't hear and speak, he had this urge to work and make something out of his life, and that is an extremely important quality in anyone, every single person I know who works for an employer and does well at work has this quality.
Fortunately for me, I had the opportunity of interacting with Subhash, I don't know even a bit of sign language and there was a comedy of errors trying to communicate the first time we tried to, I soon realised he needed someone to emulate, so we put him on a job that allowed him to follow someone around and see for himself the work that needed to be done. One week of apprenticeship and he was ready to do the job singlehandedly. He was up in the morning cleaning the area of leaves and debris of the night before at 5 am in the morning when no other help was around and then he was up for garbage next at 6:30 am, picked it up from at least 50 houses and delivered it to the collection bins. By the time it was 8 am, which was the normal reporting time at the base, he would have already completed his morning assignment, would report to the supervisor, eat some breakfast and would be looking to help others complete their routines. The rest of the day would be filled with work in the garden and some more cleaning up and his duty finished at about 3 pm peppered in between by meals.
His remarkable fortitude and perseverance has brought him praises from nearly all residents of the colony, as a matter of fact there have been numerous times when his name has been mentioned in the "achievers" list in the colony. Its been two years since he started work and what he has achieved with his life is commendable, which just takes me back to a video that I saw on youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ai3XTLyGboQ by Ruma Roka, sponsored by Franklin Templeton Investments partnered the TEDxGateway Mumbai in December 2012 which talks about the very same thing. It is an incredible experience trying to relate to Subhash and in a country where poverty breeds beggars, as you would understand, it would be easy to resort to it rather than work. Young kids are taken from the street because the only thing that makes their poverty suitable them for is begging, especially if a kid is deaf and can't speak then there is a distinct possibility that he would get maximum earnings while begging. Nobody knew what Subhash had done during his childhood, but obviously it had been a tough one, he bore signs of neglect and apathy, he was uncommunicative sometimes, his normal enthusiasm would wane and he would become wary.
Once when I asked him to go to a particular home to get their annual subscription, he refused, he shook his head twice and gestured with his hand, he obviously didn't like the family too much, they had made fun of him before and he wouldn't fall into the same trap this time, and who was I to question his logic. I allowed him to take his own decision and wiser for that, people do this all the time, deride and derogate others that are different, and in doing so fall into a trap of their own making, a deaf may not be able to hear what is being said but there is enough intuition to understand derision. Subhash stands out as an example of somebody who despite adversities of deafness and his inability to speak therefore has come out shining in his walk of life, albeit not by choice. Educate him and many more like him during their childhood and they would be ready to take on the best by the sheer dint of their hard work and single minded focus and contribute to society in a much more meaningful way.
I learnt focus and perseverance today.
The person I write about above in first person is a real person, Subhash, a cleaner and garbage collector in a residential colony in New Delhi, where I stay, he probably stands out as a live example of how unfeeling a society we are, "like I care," a common phrase heard all across Delhi, as long as I get to eat my McDonald burger, kids go to public schools and my life is all OK, I am not going to be worried about how the have nots work their lives. Some years back Subhash just appeared in our lives from nowhere, a hardworking person, very dedicated and eager to work, he was employable like nobody else we knew. So what if he couldn't hear and speak, he had this urge to work and make something out of his life, and that is an extremely important quality in anyone, every single person I know who works for an employer and does well at work has this quality.
Fortunately for me, I had the opportunity of interacting with Subhash, I don't know even a bit of sign language and there was a comedy of errors trying to communicate the first time we tried to, I soon realised he needed someone to emulate, so we put him on a job that allowed him to follow someone around and see for himself the work that needed to be done. One week of apprenticeship and he was ready to do the job singlehandedly. He was up in the morning cleaning the area of leaves and debris of the night before at 5 am in the morning when no other help was around and then he was up for garbage next at 6:30 am, picked it up from at least 50 houses and delivered it to the collection bins. By the time it was 8 am, which was the normal reporting time at the base, he would have already completed his morning assignment, would report to the supervisor, eat some breakfast and would be looking to help others complete their routines. The rest of the day would be filled with work in the garden and some more cleaning up and his duty finished at about 3 pm peppered in between by meals.
His remarkable fortitude and perseverance has brought him praises from nearly all residents of the colony, as a matter of fact there have been numerous times when his name has been mentioned in the "achievers" list in the colony. Its been two years since he started work and what he has achieved with his life is commendable, which just takes me back to a video that I saw on youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ai3XTLyGboQ by Ruma Roka, sponsored by Franklin Templeton Investments partnered the TEDxGateway Mumbai in December 2012 which talks about the very same thing. It is an incredible experience trying to relate to Subhash and in a country where poverty breeds beggars, as you would understand, it would be easy to resort to it rather than work. Young kids are taken from the street because the only thing that makes their poverty suitable them for is begging, especially if a kid is deaf and can't speak then there is a distinct possibility that he would get maximum earnings while begging. Nobody knew what Subhash had done during his childhood, but obviously it had been a tough one, he bore signs of neglect and apathy, he was uncommunicative sometimes, his normal enthusiasm would wane and he would become wary.
Once when I asked him to go to a particular home to get their annual subscription, he refused, he shook his head twice and gestured with his hand, he obviously didn't like the family too much, they had made fun of him before and he wouldn't fall into the same trap this time, and who was I to question his logic. I allowed him to take his own decision and wiser for that, people do this all the time, deride and derogate others that are different, and in doing so fall into a trap of their own making, a deaf may not be able to hear what is being said but there is enough intuition to understand derision. Subhash stands out as an example of somebody who despite adversities of deafness and his inability to speak therefore has come out shining in his walk of life, albeit not by choice. Educate him and many more like him during their childhood and they would be ready to take on the best by the sheer dint of their hard work and single minded focus and contribute to society in a much more meaningful way.
I learnt focus and perseverance today.
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