Autobiography Of A Duffer
By Santosh Jha
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Copyright 2013 Santosh Jha
Smashwords Edition
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Other Titles By Santosh Jha
Onlyness (Fiction)
Back To Bliss: A Journey To Zero (Fiction)
Naked Solutions Of Dressed Up Life Woes (Non-fiction)
Habitual Hero: The Art Of Winning (Non-fiction)
Maya And Leela: Utility In Life�s Futility (Non-fiction)
Why We Flop In Love (Non-fiction)
Wisdom Of Wellness: Perpetuity Of Poise Of Purpose (Non-fiction)
Decipher Destiny: Decode God�s Will (Non-fiction)
Youth Sanity In Crazy Culture (Non-fiction)
Redeem & Reinvent The Art Of Lost Wellness (Non-fiction)
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I
Honestly, I do not understand how to make a start. Actually, I do not even know, whether this can be said for a start. Unashamedly I can say that I am not sure, nor do I care whether this honesty is what I can pull off as okay and does not matter sorts. The simple thing; as I think I can put it this way is; I have to say things.
What I have to say? How stupid! People cannot even ask their questions in the right order. The first thing should always be first. Why people should listen to me comes first; then only the questions like why I have to say and why I can say, etc come. What I have to say is basically the last thing in the queue, given that I want to say because I also wish to be listened.
You know, my parents think I cannot even think, let alone think it right. But I tell you; and there is no harm in believing something without questioning; I can think right. That is why I asked myself the first thing first. Actually, to be honest, I asked this to my wife. You know what she said? First, you promise me that you will not laugh. It is bad manners to laugh at a woman, especially when she is not your wife but someone else�s. She said, rather, she asked me whether I knew why teams played sports against each other. She said, they did it not to win but to make others lose. People also listen to or read what others have to say not to learn from their experiences but for enjoying their pains from their bad experiences. Sadism is the best joy; she says, not I.
Actually, she may not be completely wrong, even if I discount the fact that she hates sports. I once read a best-paid soccer star saying it about one of his favorite goals. He said he enjoyed it more than sex with his girlfriend. How could he? Can kicking a stupid ball in a wide net be a joy more intense and satisfying than sex, that too with your beloved?
It looks so. I mean, how they throw themselves into wild exhilaration and boisterous celebrations after a goal! I never get such a huge kick in sex to behave uprooted like that. I admit; I am shocked. How demeaning men can be in relating such a divine experience as body intimacies with a sadistic joy of making your opponent one down. I would have understood and even appreciated if someone would say a goal is like a rape, forcing your way to leave someone devastated. How stupid! People cannot even choose their words the right way. On the other hand, do they do sex the wrong way? How can I say, I am not an expert of soccer or sex. I am just a duffer!
You know, I have read that people need to be honest when they write their biographies so I will also be. Honestly, I think my wife may be right this time. Not because she is far more educated than me or because she has read more books than many around me. I admit her sense of righteousness because she is a very smart and contemporary woman and I know, women today know much better about all possible stupidities of this world as they actually face the multidimensional stupidities of people and society. Mt wife has a brilliant sixth sense of sniffing anything, which may cause her trouble in a decade from now. I usually trust her discretion. I have to, in this case as, I am writing my memoirs only because she thinks I can pull it off well.
I have reason to believe, she is right. Have you been to a crematorium or a graveyard ever? I have been there once. I can tell you; as I have resolved to be very honest; you feel immense satisfaction that death happened not to you but to the close person whom you have brought there. I am talking about satisfaction, not joy. Joy is for conscious self, more surface level. However, satisfaction is very subtle and is in sub-conscious mind. That is why it is not registered easily.
This satisfaction; you can call it joy; after all the common perception of satisfaction is the amount of joy you get in life; is similar to what you get when you peep into the lives of your neighbor and feel good that they are indulging in such foolishness that you would never do.
No�no, please; tell me, why do you all watch the stupid daily soaps on your favorite television channel or the cacophonic reality shows? Ha�ha�gotcha! You all enjoy that the characters in the television serials do those stupidities and horrendous idiosyncrasies that you would never ever do. Taking judgments on other�s stupidities is one huge sadistic joy! It is altogether different matter that you all actually repeat the similar stupidities. Your subconscious mind is actually far more stupid than you are. However, the genius of conscious mind is a master of the craft of procrastinating this simple reality. Sorry, why should I say this? If you feel, you can present your truths when you write your own biography. This is mine and I should stick to my honesty only.
Anyway, what I was telling you is that it can be true that people get immense joy in knowing what wrongs and foolishness others have done in their lives so that they could not repeat it and that is why they read what others have to say. Actually, there is no harm in admitting that people usually have a feel good factor, when they read in books about characters and protagonists going through all sorts of silly and manageable conflicts in brilliantly insurmountable ways, to have the pleasant assurance that they are not the only stupid in the world. It is such a relief to know that it is actually okay to be a stupid in this large world. Whether they learn from it, I am not sure. However, I do not think this alone can be a reason why people read others.
Okay, I love my wife but this does not mean I should accept whatever she says and never allow other perspectives. In fact, I have never really understood how people read such bulky books of hundreds of pages. I always feel and I have actually seen it; people have so much trouble in their lives, they have so little time for even themselves and above all, they otherwise look so unconcerned about anything but self. Why then they read books. My Mom always has a thick novel in her bag and she buys so many of them. Even her ipad has over 50 ebooks, she buys from online stores; but I wonder she has the time to flip even five pages. It is altogether different matter that whenever she buys a new title, she updates her status at Goodreads and Facebook that she is reading it. However, this cannot be the basis of my conclusion. I only know my mom well; cannot say about so many others, who buy books. I surely needed an answer before I could write my biography.
I must say I am not very inclined to do what I am doing. I am just 23 years old and all I can garner, as my achievement in life is my class 12 exam, which I passed against the wildest expectation of my family and friends. Yes, my life has been full of unimaginable stupidities but I cannot accept my wife�s suggestion that people would be interested in knowing about them and will derive the sadistic pleasure that they were not as duffer as me.
I have my truths; I have my life experiences and my revelations, which my stupidities and that of others� bestowed on me have made possible. However, I am not confident people will even accept them. Acceptance is not the contemporary intellectualism; I have seen it all through my life. In Twitter and Facebook, everyone is out to prove other wrong. Rejecting and rubbishing innocence has come to be recognized as highest intellectual pursuit and the social networking sites are the best place to see it happen at its worst. Even on television, anyone can see how every panelist pounces upon the simplest of assertions of others. If you are an intellectual, the first thing you must do is say, �I beg to differ� even when you do not actually know why and what you differ.
My wife has told me, �why would anyone listen to you if you are not different� and she seems to be right as being different has become the core creed of intellectualism. But then, the question is, why anyone shall be interested in my stupidities? There are already so many around! Actually, all human stupidities and idiocy are primeval and all pervasive. I am not saying this; the whole world around me is out to prove that there are so many stupid politicians, bureaucrats and silly middle class around, who are making life hell for others. And, as aping is first instinct of humanity, everyone feels so happily inclined in adding loads of repeat value to these foolishnesses, which they decipher in others. Why should anyone be interested in my own, when mine are definitively anything but different?
You know, confidence is not always a winner; not even an asset if you do not have the obduracy of arrogance to put your foot down and say, �yes, I will, come what may�. I have had answers to many questions in my life. At times, I was even confident I should go with my own answers even if it meant trouble for me but I was never allowed. Actually, to be precisely honest, I never had the courage of arrogance.
That is why; I finally accepted others� answers as the right one for me. I think, I have the answer for this question also, as why people read books. I am 23 now and I have seen enough in my life. I have realized that people have problems only with people. They do not have problems with aliens, devils, ghosts and zombies. They love to know about them, read books a lot about them and delectably watch movies made on them. They do not have problems with dogs or even cats; rather people love them more than fellow humans. I have seen all this in Animal Planet television channel. It is what you can call intra-species rivalry. A tiger cannot tolerate another tiger in his territory, even his own mother or siblings. It can however tolerate and accept hyenas and leopards around. Humans are similar. They cannot tolerate another human if he or she happens to be outside their symbiotic beneficiality.
My dad never had time for my dear grandpa. He did not like him; I know that. However, now when my grandpa is dead, he has got a huge portrait made of grandpa and often quotes his words as ultimate wisdom. He religiously changes the rose garland on his portrait every Sunday. Books are also non-competitive like a dead man. It is like a portrait of a dead reality, which nobody has problem in accepting and even garlanding.
Dead persons cannot speak back and are amenable to any interpretation like a book. A book is a non-animated utility, in the probabilistic domain of potential wisdom, like my dear grandpa and his personality. Moreover, books do not beg to differ. However, it is my view. This however is available for selective aping.
My wife however, dutifully says, �I beg to differ�. She insists I should accept her viewpoint that people would read my biography, as they would enjoy my stupidity and relish the ultimate joy of life, the sadistic pleasure. I have accepted her answer. I told you, I do not have the courage of obduracy of arrogance to stick to my ephemeral confidence.
My grandpa, whom I loved the most, had once told me, �don�t get stuck to a question and move ahead. If you do not find the right answer, it does not mean there isn�t any. It does not seem coming to you right then, may be because, you are not ready for it. It shall come, when you are set to receive it.� I accept what he said. I must move ahead.
You see, honesty is no static virtue. People my generation should not accept it as a talent. Rather, it should be treated as a smart craft. It is something like being unapologetic about others� fallibility and sound concerned. People anyway are honest only about others. It comes easy and what essentially comes easy is what humanity accepts as �pragmatic intelligence� and what stands as tough and difficult, is labeled with due respect as �virtue�. Pragmatism always comes handy to us and that is why, it is a pragmatist�s call to be practical about virtues in life.
My dad is very knowledgeable. He has taught me many smart ideas like these. He says, honesty is useless without faith, it is futility�s ultimate utility and faith is a loser�s last consolation. It is such a waste for those who want to win. He makes me believe that winning in every possible ways is what an individual should do because, it is the only thing he or she can do. When success is in your side, it is for others to decipher and assign virtues or vices to it. If you do not do what is your part of life, others shall never do their part and this way, you are out of the picture and focus of society. And, nothing has any worth if it is not weighed up well and enough in societal marketplace. I need to believe him as my dad is hugely successful man and has hordes of people, who both love and hate him for what he is.
You know, dads are strange. I think I can say that dads are the avoidable link between a grandfather and a grandson. They actually spoil the legacy of a grandpa. Even the law says grandpa�s legacy goes straight to grandson and not to the son. Dads always whine that their dads never cared to respect their point of view in life but when it comes to their own sons, they love to do similar mistakes. That is exactly why I said, aping is first instinct of humanity, and everyone feels so happily inclined in adding loads of repeat value to predecessor�s foolishnesses.
I must tell you, I am 23 now and it is not necessary to accept all what dad says. Still, I am not relying on my honesty when I am writing my biography. My grandpa had said, �honesty is not public virtue, it�s your soul and you don�t wear your soul on your sleeves�. I must say, I am always more inclined to having my grandpa�s legacy directly, instead of it coming via his son.
I admit, there is no need to feel great about being honest. Nevertheless, you at times need it for very practical reason that there are truths and people should know them as they are. I do not feel the need to sound virtuous when I tell you that I have been labeled retarded and ridiculed by all, including my parents for being a duffer and a laggard since I was born.
However, I can tell you that it needs a lot of courage to admit that you are a retarded guy. A handicap is an honesty you do not love to wear on your sleeves. However, I do not claim virtuosity for my courage. Essentially, a retarded has claims only to his fallibilities. And I truly believe my fallibilities are my assets. And I am not saying this with a sense of virtuosity. It is a simple thing like the ambient air.
My fallibilities are my assets, not because this is only what I have. Not because they occasionally retrieve compassion from others for me, especially from those I love. Not because it makes me compassionate, about others who do wrong against me. Not because my stupidities make others and me learn. Not because they are best means of what, my wife calls sadistic joys. Not because they protect me from many undue performance pressures that the normal people are overburdened with.
Assets they are because, my fallibilities have led me to the discovery of the most precious treasure of our mortal life � the sense of humor. You become a humble owner of this treasure only when you have the courage, the courage of innocence to laugh at yourself. I am 23 now and I can tell you it is not easy. You have to be absolutely honest about and with yourself, your own fallibilities and stupidities and above all, your mortality. It is surely not easy for normal people, who are culturally trained to accept only winning as a self-worth utility.
You have to constantly and emphatically tell your highly inflated self and ego that look; you are nothing, a poor mortal thing, full of fallibilities, a non-entity, just a second away from being a nobody and a definite past, at any stage of your life. It is a very painful process before you can actually understand and acquire this treasure of humor. You need to have the innocence to accept and ingrain the consciousness of mortality. With mortality comes humility and it opens the door for humor. I have chased death multiple times, till the last door and there stood my humility. I came back to life with the treasure of humor.
�A smile, a hearty laugh is priceless, if you can give it to others. Even God cannot make you smile. He rather makes you cry. He took my grandpa away. God�s faith can give you the strength to get out of your pains but only people can give you joys and smiles. It is such a cruel world. I know that. And I know, how even a tiny bit of smile from a person, whom you even do not know well, makes such a huge difference to your wellness. It takes innocence to accept it. Sadly, people do not put innocence upfront; they instead choose to display their intelligence.
I am a bloody retarded waste. I am not complaining; even for normal people things are not easy, I understand that. They do not smile, cannot have a hearty laugh quite often. I always smile; all duffers like me smile all the time. I can make others smile and laugh. Not all duffers can do it. Because; not all duffers have a grandpa like I had. He taught me to smile and also make others smile and laugh.
As I told you, God cannot help you much. Only we can help each other. This world is a very cruel place and if you do not have somebody, who can take your hand and lead you to sanity, you will end up knocking all wrong doors. I took to drugs and almost killed myself. I committed suicide and survived. I could have tried it again but my grandpa led me to the right doors. He told me that God always sent his angels on earth with a mission to gift smile and laughter to the troubled humanity. These angels were made to be born as humans and had special abilities that other humans did not have. They are different and their mind programming is also very distinct. God intentionally loads them with all fallibilities to stand them as best qualified for the treasure of humor.
I accept his word that I am God�s angel and it is my duty to spread smile and laughter to the troubled humanity. That is why I am writing my biography. Though I know; and I have learnt it from my own experience that even my best efforts can make smile only one in a million. Smile needs the navigation of innocence of first order but this cruel world prefers intellectualism over innocence.
Grandpa said it right, duffers like me are angels as only angels always smile. The intellectuals will make a dead face over the best of humor and say with a grave tone, �I beg to differ�. My dad never smiles. I have seen him laughing only once; it was when my mom divorced him and married his junior.
My wife works in publishing industry. To be very honest, she asked me to write my biography and even assured me that she would push it through to the bookstores. She has advised me to �make it fully loaded�. �If you can rake in un-patterned madness and patterned sex in your book, you may even find a publisher yourself; otherwise I am here for you�, she has told me. She is only three years older to me but always bosses on me. I am not sure what she means and what I can rake in. But I am not stuck, I move ahead.
II
I am very reluctant to say all this but he made me do it. I cannot talk about my patients and reveal facts about them. However, he insisted that I had to write a chapter in his biography because of two reasons � first, his wife asked him to make his biography different and second, he believes, I am the most eligible person to write about him as he has spent the most time with me after his grandpa. Had his grandpa been alive, he would have written it all but now I have to do it.
He is right. After the age of ten, when he was first brought to me for treatment and counseling, he has spent hours with me. He has been in all sorts of trouble and his parents felt, he needed psychological help to have a semblance of a normal life. I must accept, I have earned a fortune from his parents for hours of counseling and treatment I have done for him as my patient. He accepts me as his most trusted friend. He has assured me that he would ensure my anonymity. I seek apology for doing it but I cannot say no to this marvelous duffer.
The only thing he has done well before time is what he cannot take credit for. He was born almost three months before time. There was little hope for his survival but then; his grandfather was probably right in saying, �goodness must come early and should always go late�. This adorable duffer really has come with multiple lives; he has survived thrice. However, he is not born with multiple abilities. That is probably why he smiles all the time. His singular possession of innocence has loaded him with an ability, which most multi-ability persons do not have or they squander it. His innocent humor has the magic of purity God labors to preserve.
His mother was actually very happy that she would get rid of her pregnancy three months early when the doctor, a friend of mine told her that the baby was not growing in her womb and she would need to go under the knife. He was virtually created in the incubator and till the age of 12, he had to undergo innumerable small and big operations to make him a livable human. However, we doctors created and shaped only his body parts. He was born with a date with life and packaged with a zeal for it, which made him go through all his troubles with a smile, which is this duffer�s signature on life. I also must admit, we doctors only undid, which his parents consciously and unconsciously did to him. However, what made him is something, he was born with and what his brilliant grandpa very carefully chiseled out of him.
I am bound by my professional ethics not to reveal anything about the treatment and physical status of my patients. That is why I shall stick here to his personality and uniqueness of character. What I shall tell will be a friend telling about his dear friend, though I am more than his father�s age. He has given me the liberty and I truly wish to use this opportunity to tell things, as a common human being, which I could not as a doctor.
The first thing I wish to say is about the idea of abnormal and disorder. This boy was brought to me at the age of ten with his parents seriously complaining about he being abnormal and having disorders. All over the world, people are paying and psychologists are raking up fortunes treating people for abnormalities and disorders. The weird and somehow stupid element of rigidity about normal and orderly in our culture is landing so many people over the fence and they find themselves on our doors. I need to talk about it then only his readers can decide whether he is a duffer or what! Also, they can then decide who is actual duffer.
Let us first put the straight question � what is �order, or �orderly�? What precisely is the criterion of the term order? Technically, an order is a condition of logical-methodical or comprehensible-prescribed arrangement, the established system of social organization, a sequence or arrangement of successive things, a customary procedure, an authoritative sanction of a prescribed model, etc.
In simple words, it is easily decipherable to anyone that definitions of �order� are expressly collective, societal and authoritative. Order and consequently, disorder shall also remain an interpretation of the collective will of a contemporary society and culture; that too at a point of time and keeps changing.
To make it clear; disorder is essentially a cultural benchmark, mostly enjoying the authoritative sanction. An individual positioning, as often, may stand in complete or partial contrast with the established norms and benchmarks of �order� and lead to a stand which may sound like a �disorder� but only by the established societal pathology. An individual might always say, �he is right and in perfect order!
An extreme of this may be an individual, or a small collective labeling the benchmark of order of the authoritative collectivity as a �disorder� itself. It is already happening globally, as newer generations are reluctant to go by established norms of order. The technology is helping their flight of fancy and every day, new trends are emerging, which challenge established orders. It has always happened in the past too but in very small measures. It is so strange. At a time, when the fine line between normal and deviant has almost lost its existence, it is somehow a misnomer to accept the age-old benchmarks of a person, whom we can accept as psychologically a perfectly poised and normal thing.
All rational people in this world have always respected and even welcomed individual perspectives. Revolutions, which bring about refreshing changes in societal-political order, have always germinated from individual initiatives or from a small collectivity, which initially were butchered by the established order. All definitions of �order� and �disorder� are bordering beyond what may be termed as authoritative. What authoritatively is �orderly�, may well be a �disorder� in popular perception and the vice-versa. Old benchmarks of authoritative and societal-cultural order and pattern are in for a toss. The new benchmarks of �order� are more on the wrong side of popular perceptions. It is truly difficult to say what should ideally be the �order� of the day!
The word �disorder� is a generalization, which is less specific than the term �problem� but often labeled as if it were a trouble. There are psychologists who are campaigning for acceptance of the word �Mind Issues�, instead of the term mind disorders. Certain mind positioning may not be problem for others but may not be conducive to long-term mental health of the individual, in the contemporary socio-cultural milieu he or she lives. Therefore, psychologists wish to make a larger perspective of widest possible mind issues.
What I mean to say in easy sounding words is, we humans are essentially culturally inclined minds. There is a straight line drawn for all of us and we all are expected to follow it. Anyone, expecting to experiment willfully or wavering away from the line because of some other idea or attitude is a sure case for a psychologist. The terms normal and order are very much cultural perceptions and they keep changing. Therefore, the idea and benchmarks of normal and order also get altered with time and space. In a contemporary culture of instant-self-gratification and cult of trigger-happy consumption and fun, a teenage boy or girl talking of purity and virginity is promptly labeled abnormal. A few decades back, the reverse was abnormality. A young boy keeping away from girls and showing little joy in wild sexual and other adventurisms of modernist culture is taken to a