Autobiography Of A Duffer by Santosh Jha (good books to read for teens TXT) 📕

to his room, with no one ever talking to him or taking him outside to make him see the world. His grandpa once suggested that he should be occasionally sent for a month to live with him. He could see the trouble brewing up. His mother revolted against the idea and even his father did not like it. They were against the idea as his mother felt; he would pick up bad manners, wrong middle-class traditions and useless old ideas from his grandparents. He grew up a loner and was very happy with he being perfectly fine with his gadgets and toys, which were crammed in his room.

The trouble started when teachers complained that he did not speak to his classmates and did not pay attention to whatever was going on in the classroom. He always remained talking to himself silently and as the talk inside was what he was happy with and enjoyed, he felt no need to talk to anyone else and get involved in anything outside.

His first nomenclature of duffer came from his class teacher, who thought, kids are born to learn whatever teachers ask them to. His persistent refusal to fall in line with the teacher’s ways made the teacher shoot off a long complaint in his diary. He was finally fetched to me at the age of ten, when his parents too felt; he was beyond their marvelous intelligence, which made them successful. They accepted the label of duffer and added the label of ‘abnormal’ and ‘disordered’ on him and dutifully handed him over to me.

It is somehow strange. Old wisdom says and even today, all wise people admit that it takes a whole society to make a child and grow him as a good person. Evolution is one such remarkable history of humanity and its struggle to create a milieu, which ensured excellence to individual in a collective space of society. The cultures were designed to suit this individual growth, which could in turn engender collective utility.

However, modern contemporary culture has evolved an ideal, where it is accepted that a child is parent’s sole responsibility and nobody else has any role in it. Finally, it is now restricted to one single woman, who has to grow the child completely on her own. The parents believe, growing is a natural and automatic function. Even weeds and a silly plant grow in a small pot! Like a plant in the pot, they think, a child shall automatically grow well if it is regularly given water. They pump in all resources and think; the child shall grow out of his or her own energies. If it does not, there are schools to do it. The schools too have become smart. They do not throw it back to parents as they charge huge amounts from them to make their kids cultured. They now have their own psychologists and counselors. In any case, they finally land with us with the expectation that we have a magic potion and a wand, which can settle everything. It is somehow true about all doctors. People do all sorts of stupidities with their body and then land at a doctor, expecting he or she would make them back in perfect shape.

It is so strange that now, the belief has come to be accepted that the state knows it better than parents and society as how to raise a child. There are rules for parents and state is on the vigil to crack its whip on erring parents. The parents do not have the time and inclination to enrage the state power and it is only convenient for them to send their ‘abnormal’ kids to us. We actually get moneys to save them from society as well as the state. This arrangement is fine with contemporary culture. People have loads of money, they do not however have any time for anything other than their own personal attainments and gratifications. The markets and pop culture keep telling them that money can buy anything and if it cannot buy that thing, it is not worth a penny.

If you ask me, what is wrong with my dear friend, I would say, it is almost impossible to say. Most part of his troubles is actually cultural. Medically too, it is difficult to say, what his troubles are as medical science is still not sure about brain functioning. His troubles may well be in-built, because of his troubled birth or may be; most part of it, his environments cultivated and cultured in him. His brain does not seem to respond to emotions and ideas in motor-action terms. A usual brain is instinctively action-reaction mechanism. It responds to a stimulus in action terms, enabling the nerves controlling the motor muscles to act. He never reacts to anything promptly. The second important thing is, there seems to be little culture in him. May be part of his brain has not grown the way it does in ‘normal’ people. His brain processing is very simple and he takes ideas very much in terms of their face value. He does not involve the emotional conflicts in anything. He does not admit any cultural practice in his decision-making. His thinking and emotions are very linear and deep. His decision-making has loads of his grandpa in them. His grandpa instilled in him a sense of right and wrong. He usually associates all his decisions as per the benchmarks decided by his grandpa. If he has to decide something on his own, he just looks at the element of comfort in it. He does not like sex, as it is not a comfortable thing in his decision-making matrix. To him, it involves a lot of uncomfortable action. He enjoys love and intimacy. He loves hugging you and remains hugged. He loves to talk and laugh for hours. His grandpa also has lot to do with his choices. He told him, “all joys, which you create just being you and not involving others for its utility are the real joys. If this creation extends utility to others, it is the test that your joys are good and worthy.” He accepts only those things as true, which his grandpa said.

III

Well, before I tell you more about my life, I must tell you that whatever my dear doctor friend has told you earlier are more of a friend’s words for me than a psychologist’s. I have no problem accepting that I am not normal and have disorders. It is not good to label a whole bunch of people and your society wrong to show yourself as right. It is wrong to stand your so-called virtues on the pedestal of vices of society. My grandpa had told me once, “It does not take someone to be wrong for other to be right. People can be right in their own right and a good society is one, which respects all rights and is compassionate to all wrongs.”

I understand, I cannot complain about others not being compassionate about my wrongs. However, my grandpa made me believe that my joy is what I can create for myself, not depending on others for its utility and goodness. I am happy being open and compassionate about others’ wrongs. I may not get the space for my own rights in others’ domain, but it does not affect my joys. I am very happy. I am happy I have people who give me this space. My grandpa, my doctor friend, my very intelligent wife and my equally intelligent dog; they all are my wellness support system.

Now, I intend to tell you things, which is actually my wife’s insistence that I must. She has asked me to rake up things, which are different so that readers could like it. I surely cannot put in un-patterned madness, as she suggested but I can surely tell you what I really feel differently. If you like it, my wife shall be happy. After all, she is the last to read it all and put in her words as the last chapter. She decides, if it is good enough to get through to markets.

Now that I am 23, and I can assure you that I have started to understand that, whether it is a monkey, a lion, a small insect or human being; every single organism has to act and behave in a way, which is appropriate for all of them in a species and the physical milieu they live. It is not that only humans stick to their own cultural benchmarks. All species do it. That is why I accept that I am expected to be like all those, who happily, unhappily or unconsciously become merged to culturally defined rights and wrongs. I am a grown up man now; I have started to learn culture and actually, I have read so much stuff on culture on the net. Still, I must confess, I am hugely inconvenienced and awkward when I find myself doing things the cultured way.

You know, my grandpa bought comic books for me when I was a kid. He gave me comics of animals and their stories. I instantly fell in love with animals and their way of life. Later, when I grew up, I got addicted to Animal Planet channel on television. I learnt a very stupid thing from animals and I have accepted it as my core prudence. If you minus the hours of painful and tough time the animals, big and small have to work for their survival, you shall find that they are very peacefully lazy and leisure-preferring things like me. I never had to work for my food and that is why I believe, I have no reason to be in the typical action-reaction mode of life, which I see most people are. Even in animal world, there is so much strife, struggle and confusion when they compete for food and mating. Otherwise, they are always peaceful and in good humor. You should watch the babies of wild animals. They do not have to compete for food and mating and you can see, how beautifully lovable their action-behavior is. Even a lion’s baby is so cute and lovable. However, when he grows up and has to feed for himself and have his family, he becomes a nasty and brute beast.

When I grew up, I could see that people are also in same strife, struggle and conundrum when they are in the competitive culture over food and mating. Of course, this food is just notional. It is just food for animals but for humans, this food is a broad emotion of survival, which unconsciously takes the shape of personal excellence and exclusivity. It is so silly that humans are such a scared and insecure lot. They are so good at labeling everything as question of either their false pride or fake sense of survival.

Actually, it is where I hate culture. This fakeness and falsehood, which we humans so intelligently imbibe and in turn pump in into our culture is something unique in all species of the universe. You must believe me. It is not that I am a duffer and I say only insane things. I have my credentials on it. I have watched the maximum hours of Animal Planet channel and searched most pages on internet over animals and their world than anyone who is 23 years old.

My grandpa told me a very interesting thing. Now that I am 23 years old and started to understand what culture is and how things work in this world, I can now interpret what my grandpa wished me to learn and live my life as. He told me, “all greats of humanity had singular attainment, which made them greats. They never counted themselves in any situation and even when they had to do so, they counted themselves as the last one. This is something not amenable for intelligence but to innocence only.”

I am not sure what he actually meant but what I can