RightSIDE Up!

Exams done, class beginning after 15 days, nothing to do, nothing to worry about… the perfect state of mind! As per the usual holiday schedule, I was doing nothing… I got up at 2 pm, did my daily chores and looked at the clock. It wasn’t evening yet; we still had few hours to go before the live coverage of the India-Australia test match started. Someone came up with the idea of watching a movie to kill the time and within a few minutes we were scattered in front of the idiot box watching ‘Tare jameen pee...'

The movie was half way through and I was already yawning! Later half of the movie brought my greatest breakthrough of the year 2007! “I have Dyslexia.”

Immediately after the movie I went on wikipedia and was astonished to check the symptoms. That list of symptoms defined me:

• May be bright, intelligent and articulate, however their reading, writing and spelling level is below their average age group.
• Have the same intelligence range as people without dyslexia.
• May have poor academic achievement due to their problems with reading and writing.
• May have good oral language abilities but will perform much more poorly on similar written-language tests.
• Because dyslexia primarily affects reading while sparing other intellectual abilities, affected individuals might be categorized as not "behind enough" or "bad enough" to receive additional help in a school setting.
• Might feel unintelligent and have poor self-esteem, and might be easily frustrated and emotional about school reading or testing.
• Might try to hide their reading weaknesses with ingenious compensatory "strategies".
• Might learn best through hands-on experience, demonstrations, experimentation, observation, and visual aids.
• Can show talents in other areas such as art, drama, music, sports, mechanics, story-telling, sales, business, designing, building, or engineering.
• Have related problems with attention in a school setting; for instance they might seem to "zone out" or daydream often; get lost easily or lose track of time; and have difficulty sustaining attention.

More than anything, I was relieved to have finally found a name to this thing I knew about me since I was a boy. In school I did really well as a kid till the 4^th grade. Good marks don’t necessarily mean you have understood the subject and vice-a-versa. What I remembered was the steps and procedures of throwing the loads of stuff crammed into my brain on a piece of paper, mostly in the form of pictures. They were trying to make me literate and an expert at mugging, not educate me. School should be more about cherishing the spirit of learning. But then I saw others doing well or ok with it and that left me with a feeling that I am strange. I knew I was slower than others but there was no problem in understand things then why lesser marks? I didn’t know what more I had to do. I soon found myself in the average part of the class.

I was always surprised about my peers reading and finishing studies so fast. My friends used to say “I finished this book in 2 days”, and I thought it’s impossible... I just can’t do it. I was never interested in books, (except for the pictures in it). I never read newspapers (expect chintoo). I had many many story books, which I never read, it was a fight not worth the reward. Seeing pictures, I madeup my own stories and ofcourse my mom read it out for me when I was small. But as I grew up I realized this was hampering my general knowledge too. I attributed this to my laziness. And I thought I couldn’t read stuff fast just because I wasn’t used to reading. I tried hard and it did improve my reading speed; it was all too frustrating and exhausting for me, only make me feel dizzy. I knew things mostly by hearing in class, watching Discovery channel or national geographic and mainly talking to people. I got ok marks and never ever the though of having some disorder came to my mind.

I learned to disguise the fact that I cannot read, write or talk well. But a stage came when I couldn't even pretend. I had three options, be a dumb kid, a bad kid or a silent kid. I chose to keep quite. I never talked in family get-together, social events etc... I remember people used to clap in family get-togethers even when I ‘smiled’. And my talking was a rare treat. I was fondly called ‘mohoni-baba’, the saint how never speaks! I should admit now that I always found the ways of the society weird and unreasonable and it was hard to fit myself in. I thought that either I had to be too practical or there’s something wrong with these people. But the entire planet cannot be mad, so it had to be the other way round! It was all too confusing as a kid and may be that’s why I resorted to drawing as a kid. You are talking to a piece of paper, or a corner of the wall. And it just listens to you, and understands you perfectly well. It’s a beautiful, truthful relation!

My brain is a perpetual idea machine which always kept me busy. I always said this: “I’ll fall ill if I am not busy, busy is the way of life!”… At the same time, I can spend hours doing nothing… finding familiar shapes in the clouds or watching snails in our backyard or watching fish in my aquarium or the coming and going of waves on the shore or just see people go by… the list is infinite!

Painting has been my greatest passion. It was not so since childhood. I don’t know when and how I started drawing. I don’t know if I liked it or enjoyed it. It was an involuntary action. I remember being scolded for drawing on the walls of my house. Then I got used to drawing in a diary. It was a ritual. All the text books, class work books, walls of my house, my palm, and anything on which I can write or engrave had my drawings on it. Those were the real letters, the words, the expressions. Especially when other forms of expression were blocked for me.

But I never looked at it as an asset. I wasn’t good at some other things that were more important. Drawing is just a hobby, a pass time. In 2000 I shifted to Aundh, where I started visiting my uncle, Mr. Subhash Deshpande more frequently. He introduced me to watercolours and landscaping and I realized I wasn’t as good as I thought. Also Shashank dada introduced me to the world of classical music. Through my Uncle I met Mr Prataprao Mulick and later his son Mr. Milind Milick and saw myself as a speck of dust in the art of ‘being able to see’. All these maestros gave me a window to look from. A window in an infinitely long and tall wall that had been there for 17 years now… what a relief it was. Unlike my low concentration and impatience in studies I found ‘I’ was lost when I was painting, often forgetting about lunch and dinner. I applied the analogies of painting phylosophy to my studies, engineering and life! It laid the foundation of my sculpting, computer art work and photography skills. For the first time I took pride in being able to paint, think differently and being able to see. It gave a means to open up to the world and I found myself being able to act normally in social circles. Life was really generous to me during my engineering days, the MIT days and I met all the right kind of people; mentors to look up to, principles to adhere to and friends for life. Those were the days when I really grew up. Realizing that I can learn, just that I learn differently...

In this period I confused myself, I faced an identity crises. Am I an engineer, an artist, a painter, an architect or a manager maybe? Crises I still face; don’t know what I really am, probably everything that I think I am...

I have never done well academically, in all major exams… My engineering academic scores suggested I wasn’t the best of engineers… and L&T followed by Purdue surprise me on this! And then I get horrible grades at Purdue to kind of show me my position! The identity crises would have continued had the discovery not happened yet...

Anyways, that’s my version of dyslexia, and I am glad to have found a name for this old friend after living with it for 23 years. I don’t know if it’s good or bad, but it sure made things more interesting!
Bad news is that, it’s a disorder and not a disease (Diseases get cured). And ignorance is not bliss, just because it doesn’t last long enough! But the good news is that people like Edison, Einstein, Picasso, Bill Gates and Leonardo Da Vinci had the same problem!!! So I might end up in this league of extraordinary gentlemen some day!! :)

Dyslexia means my left brain is weaker than the right... Afterall the 'Right' side up may not be a bad idea!