The story of my Life by Helen Keller - a book review

It is hard to imagine life of a person who is both deaf and blind. It would be something like groping in total darkness akin to being in a deep, dark well with deadly silence. If God wishes even such a person would have her soul out of that dreadful well. Not only that her soul would fly and feel the beauties of meadows and the sky and even beyond that. 'The story of my life' by Helen Keller is part of the syllabus of class tenth where my younger son is studying. I read the story to explain it to him and his friends but now I am finding it difficult to express it in words.

Helen was born in 1880. She lost her hearing and sight due to some fever when she was merely nineteen months old.

With the aid of her teachers and the books written in Braille, her soul got enlightened as much or even more than those who can hear and see. She with her limited faculties experienced and lived her life to the full. She was the first person of her kind to be a graduate. According to her acquiring education without feeling  is like being deaf to the harmonies of nature. The richness of her vocabulary, expression and thoughts is amazing and most likely to dwarf the able bodied reader in his own eyes.

What one may not see with his eyes and hear with his ears she could feel with her hands. At times smell alone guided her ways. Despite her deprivations she had read a vast number of books and imbibed their essence into her soul.

Her enriched soul is such an inspiration that we should never at any time get depressed and discontentful in our life.

The immortal kids of the literary world.

A boy having long hair puts a strange question to his mother, "Why am I so dark cloured mother?"
To tell the boy that it was due to his grazing the cows in the sunshine could have been counter productive. So the mother says, "Not at all. You are so very normal."
" But mother, why the girl who lives around the corner of the street is fair like a fairy while I am almost black?", asks the boy unappeased by her reply.
"When you were very small you had a black thread around your waist for your clothing. Nowadays you keep a black blanket  over your shoulders. Possibly these things have rendered a hue of darkness to you. Or may be it is because you were born on a pitch dark night. But there is no need to take the complexion so seriously as is not at all black but merely a shade or two darker than others."
When the boy was still not satisfied the mother says, "Now whether you believe it or not the damsel you are talking about is, no doubt, fair but she has got dark black eyes upon which she applies black Kajjra powder. And from those black eyes she has casted a black spell upon you turning you black." With this reply she leaves the matter fully settled.

Above is the theme of a popular bhajan from the Bollywood movie 'Satyam Shivam Sundaram'.
Now let us talk about Hamid, a child character created by Prem Chand.
Hamid is an orphan. He visits the Id fare with just three paise given by his grandmother. This boy is far too mature for his tender age just as most other orphans tend to become. He sees no fun in joyrides. He cannot afford them is a different matter though. Neither is he taken in by toys made up of sugar crystals. A toy soldier, a barrister with black coat and a Bishti (the water deliverer) also fail to impress him. He considers such stuff a sheer wastage of hard earned money although a corner of his heart desperately wants to own them. By any means he cannot strike a deal as they are much beyond his budget. Finally through hard negotiation he purchases a pair of tongs. The boys try to downgrade his prized item while on their way back home. But our hero has a smart salesman within him. He throws his tong on the ground and challenges others to put their toys to such a test. The tide changes and all the little ones get attracted to the pair of tongs. "It is a multipurpose thing friends. If attacked by a baddie it can act as a weapon. No doubt one can play also with it by making the two ends strike with each other. In this way a music can be created." The other children start fancing his merchandise. They requested him to exchange their toys with his tongs for a little while. Hamid agrees to their proposal and gets the pleasure of touching and feeling all other toys turn by turn. Before reaching home most of the fancy toys get either broken or distorted. But Hamids mighty pair of tongs is in full glory. Hamid's grandmother was brimmed with affection when she learns that her grandson has bought a tool which could make her easy to make fire without burning fingers.

Tom is yet another child character. He is the creation of the story writer Mark Twain.

Tom's spirits are dampened when on a fine holiday morning he is asked to whitewash the entire boundary of the hutment. He puts a brave face and starts brushing the wall ignoring his friends who were out for playing. He declines the request of others to try their hand on such an unusual activity. Tom relents only after making a hard bargain and gives them a chance turn by turn. While tom sits under the shade of a tree with the bargained things like apple oranges, broken toys etc, his friends whitewash the fence two times over and stop only when the whole of the whitewashing material is finished. It is all over in such a short time and Tom still has the whole day before him for fun and enjoyment. Thus he discovers a very important aspect of human nature where a thing can be made extremely coveted if it is made difficult to attain. Had he requested his friends to help him in his task, he could have only got their smirks and jeers. With a tactful approach he wins their labour as well as their eatables and toys.