Helen Keller was born on 27 June, 1880. She was born
beautiful and playful. However, human life is unpredictable. Helen was only a
year and a half old when she caught such a strange fever that she lost the
ability to see, hear and speak forever. Now this was an unexpected blow of
life, but the human spirit is all about defeating such blows and emerging
unscathed by them. It is not the mark of a true human being to become
disheartened or dejected by the adversities of life or get scared of them and
start seeking some kind of refuge.
Nevertheless, despite having lost her sensory organs,
Helen started living a normal life. She got engrossed in viewing and
understanding the world with the help of her mother. She began to learn the
sign language. And in this manner, gradually she started communicating with
others using her own understanding. For example, moving her head sideways meant
‘no’ and nodding it up and down meant ‘yes’ etc. And by the time she was four
years old, she even started helping out with household chores. She was becoming
particularly fond of folding clothes. What was most surprising was that she
would easily identify her own garments from the pile of clothes.
In the meantime, her cook’s daughter Martha and their
pet dog had become her close friends. In their company, she had started roaming
in the gardens and cowsheds. For Helen, this experience was much more blissful
than thousands of imaginary experiences of heaven. In Martha’s company, she had
started learning new signals of communication by herself. For example, she
would pretend to shiver if she wanted to have an ice-cream.
Amidst such activities, Helen became seven years old.
Observing her talent, Helen’s mother desired to educate her. When did Helen
ever object to that? She certainly wanted progress in life. And so, a teacher
named Anne, who was only 14 years old, then began home schooling Helen. Anne’s
first priority was to teach Helen to identify objects by their names. And for
this purpose, she would keep an object in Helen’s one hand and would write the
name of the object on her other hand; sometimes, a doll and something else at
other times. But how much would a girl who could not hear, read and speak
understand? Nevertheless, she was Helen Keller! One day when she was playing
with falling water, Anne immediately took her hands and started writing water
on it with her finger. Helen quickly understood that this cold thing falling on
her hands is water.
That was it! Helen’s further education began with her
moving her fingers on embossed words on cardboard. And Helen was so talented
and dedicated that she learnt thousands of words in no time. Soon, Helen even
started reading books with the help of embossed words on cardboard. Eventually,
she enrolled in the university and even graduated. The whole world saluted her
for this talent. Overnight, she became the most talked-about young woman in the
world! However, Helen still had a long way to go. So, she not only learnt
typing but also wrote twelve books using that skill. But she was not content even
with that. She wanted to do something for all those who had lost their sensory
organs. And for this purpose, with great difficulty she even learnt to express
words by moving her lips. …Now there was no stopping her. At the age of 66, the
hard-working Helen undertook a journey of 35 countries in the next 11 years.
Whichever country she travelled to, not only had its heads of state, but also
its leading personalities from other fields coming to honour her. And amidst
all such activities, Helen said her final goodbye to the world at the age of
88.
Helen may have said her goodbyes to the world, but
before that she had taught the world what she had to. She had proved what all
human beings could achieve on the strength of their spirit. Unforeseen troubles
and obstacles always keep arising in life and this is what life is all about.
…But to give in to these difficulties does not befit human beings. Neither does
it befit them to seek refuge in temples-mosques-churches. The only thing that
befits humans is to overcome adversities with the strength of their spirit and
hard work.
But we hold our head in our hands at the most trivial
of troubles. Our life becomes meaningless just because of small losses,
ordinary illness or by petty arguments with our loved ones. We turn to
temples-mosques for help. We start grovelling before the maulvis-priests. From
random threads to amulets, we mindlessly wear everything that we are asked to
wear by anyone. However, Helen did not do any such thing. Neither did she get
distressed or disheartened, and nor did she complain to God about anything.
Neither did she curse her destiny nor did she seek any solace from priests. She
simply kept moving ahead in life with the help of the imperishable spirit that
God has given humans.
Today on the occasion of her birthday, I accept the
great Helen Keller as a goddess of spirit. And I resolve that henceforth
whenever trouble arises in life, I will compare it to those of Helen’s. No
matter what struggles have to be faced, no matter what kind of losses I incur,
it will surely not be as big as Helen’s loss of her three senses. I will
immediately consider it as an insignificant problem and overcome it with the
power of my spirit. And you…? May be, even you would do the same. This is what
should be done. Otherwise the relentless hard work of the goddess of spirit and
this inspiring story of hers will be in vain. And I hope that today on the
occasion of her birthday you would not let this happen.
- Deep Trivedi
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