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

take of it is that I do not need to put myself in the center of any picture of life and situations of living realities. The simple idea is, you actually never think of yourself as something different from the rest of the crowd. This situation is so very typical of animals. I can relate with them. They do not think of themselves as anything different and special. They all look alike, behave like one common entity and live together in herds as if they are one single pack of things. Have you seen the wildebeests or gazelles in the wild? I have watched them hundreds of times on television. They move together, graze together and live together. They all look the same and when it is time, every one of the thousands of them move like one pack towards places in complete unison.

You cannot see this happen to humans. The humans do not look the same and are not actually the same. They all are different not only in their looks but also in action and behavior. They count themselves as someone and that too a special one, different from other humans. And they foolishly pride this distinction. They do not live together, do not move, work and eat together in perfect unison, as they can never agree to each other and accept themselves as one single pack. Animals do not count themselves as different and special. That is why they can agree to singular action and behavior.

Therefore, it is my conclusion and I have to come to it as my grandpa is no more with me to correct me; this whole greatness is about being like animals. Essentially, once you are born as a human being, you have to strive to become like animals and you attain greatness. This you do by not being intelligent like other humans but simply being innocent like animals. Once you do it, the next stage is to become compassionate and rise a step ahead of animals by being kind to other species too. This animal thing is good, till they start killing others for food. As a human, we are superior to them and that is why we cannot kill and pain our species and others. This makes you great. I am 23 and I do understand many things now but I am not sure what this greatness fetches to you. I am a duffer so I am not sure this is the right answer but I genuinely feel that this thing, which my grandpa referred to as greatness, is actually a very happy situation. I feel so happy being true and innocent like animals and this makes me share my smiles with others.

I have a living proof in my bedroom. This brilliant dog I have; this animal is very much like what my grandpa suggested I should be. I am not truly like him but I am closely watching him every day to learn things from him. You throw away a bread to him and if he is hungry, he shall rise up and eat it peacefully. However, if he is not hungry, give him his food with all sorts of pampering but he won’t eat. This is what grandpa said about not counting yourself. This dog does not bother about how you give him food. Whether you throw it at him or give it with loads of hugging and patting, he hardly cares. It is surely up to his actual hunger. Humans are not like that. I am also not like him. I count the attitude and behaviors for me. I cannot accept a food if it is thrown at me. I am not as innocent as this dog is. If I were a great, it should not count. People count themselves as someone above their needs and then things lead to strife, conflict and confusion. I have learnt it from him and I am practicing the art painfully. I do not count myself when people say bad things about me. I stick to my simple needs. My grandpa said it very right. He told me, “innocence shall always land you to your actual needs but intelligence would drag you to vast ocean of wants.”

This dog, like all other animals was actually innocent but now he is also picking up culture of we humans. As I watch him closely, I have seen that he is getting closer to my wife and sometimes even ignoring me. All humans become crazy when they see a girl and this dog is getting to that. May be I am wrong. May be, he is more inclined to her because she often sprays her fabulous deodorant on him. I think, I should not count that. I know, my grandpa wanted me to be great. I cannot do anything, which he believed I should not.

I do not have much to say about my worldview and me, which could interest anyone. However, I really wish to tell you about my grandpa because, I am what I am today, because of him. He had called me a day before his death and he wanted me to make a promise to him. I told him, I would never fail him and my promise to him. He wanted me to promise that I would begin where he ended. You may find it stupid but I shall elaborate to tell you what he wished. Before that, I must tell you, I am doing what I promised.

In the Animal Planet channel, I have watched the evolution processes of animals and I think, it is what humans need to follow. They however don’t. My grandpa told me, he lived for 70 years and only in the last 20 years of his life, he could understand what life actually meant and how one could live his or her life well. What he meant to say is, everyone has to go through a process of his personal evolution to understand life and decipher its nuances. This takes most of his or her life. He told me about a great man saying, “most part of our lives, we spend preparing for it. Most do not actually get ready for life, only a few are lucky to live their lives with perfect readiness.”

In simple words, he wanted me not to waste my life preparing for it as I could simply start living it, accepting my grandpa’s years of labor and painful preparations as his legacy to me. I just needed to accept his attainments as my own possession at the very start of my life and then build on it. I accepted his words and I am surely building on my life over what he left for me as my strong platform.

It is something, animals do instinctively but humans never do. Animals have this prudence to ensure that every mother of the group deliver their babies almost at one time. Within a week, thousands of wildebeest and gazelle babies are born. They have so much fun together and the entire herd of thousands of parents cares for them as they are always around them. The kids pick up what the adults have already learnt through painful experiences. They simply ape their adults and become experienced within days. Humans do not do it this way and I think that is why they are in huge trouble. Their babies are therefore lonely and have to live alone in a room. Their parents are never around them. Humans do not live in herds like animals. They live in apartments and colonies but they never meet each other. Their kids are born if different times and that is why kids do not have a bunch of them to play with each other. They cannot ape anyone, as there is almost no one around who could make them learn automatically. The human kids have maids who come in timely, provide you food and wash your dirty ass. They themselves know nothing and if a kid apes them, their parents kick the maids out. And suddenly, when the kid becomes six years old, he is sent to a school where the kid is expected to learn everything in half-hour classes. I wonder; if a lion’s baby is sent to a school to learn in half an hour how to dissect the belly of a Zebra after his father kills it; he shall come out as big a duffer as me. It is something he learns within a week of his birth, by simply aping the mother or father doing it. I learnt this art of aping my grandpa successfully as I knew, he was always right. The biggest proof of his righteousness was that he was never ever angry and violent, like my parents, who always found fault in me and turned violently angry over me. I know, you will say that I am a duffer and I cannot understand life well. Still, I need to tell you that if you are angry over anything, you are likely to be wrong. Even when you are right, you lose your right to rightness when you become angry. My grandpa made me learn this simple fact. I am never angry and always smiling, even when I know, I am a duffer and can do loads of wrong. I am also not angry when people wrong me and smile at me. This I do because I do not count myself.

My grandpa made me learn a very simple thing, which I have accepted as the strong platform, on which I have to build up my life. My wife also agrees on that and has assured me that she can handle anything else, which falls outside my conviction, when I am up with life and its troubles. I trust her, she is brilliant and a true contemporary woman. I relish and evolve when I am in leisure and quiet. She relishes and is at her best when she is handed a fight with the world around her. She loves to be a warrior and I am happy to handover my reigns to her. This suits me, as I have great liking for what animals do. I think you know how a lion is relaxing or sleeping sixteen hours a day while his wife, the lioness works the same 16 hours chasing prey for the survival of her pride. The only difference is, I have told her I shall raise my kid myself and my way, when we decide for it. Mt wife is too happy with the arrangement. Also, my grandpa has given me enough money to pay for my household bills. My wife also believes I do not need to be what I do not like to be. I am happy in my home and my own world.

The simple thing my grandpa made me learn, is something I find as self-evident, not needing any proof of truth as I have verified that it is the way things are in the animal world. As the human world does not have things this way, they are in perpetual crisis and confusion. I caution you, what I am saying is a duffer’s perspective and it is not something you shall find as culturally right and acceptable. It is my biography and that is why I have the rights to say it. If you do not like it, you always have your turn when you write your own.

My grandpa told me that all situations of life and all disposition of one’s own mind would always open two doors for anyone. The first door is of pain and suffering and other door leads you away from them. It is an individual’s choice which door he or she opens and enters. The mind and its disposition would find itself in different situations throughout the lives and this one cannot control. What is for an individual to choose is his or her insistence on entering that door, which leads him or her way from