The 'funny' disability

It was the summer of ’69. Quite literally. My newly wed parents had just shifted base from Punjab to Delhi
and were traveling on a train with the last leg of their luggage. On the opposite berth sat a family of four,
a thin middle aged man with a moustache heavier than his built, his wife with a built that more than made
up for the loss and their two kids, a sweet little girl around six years of age and a teenaged son  who kept
staring at my mom with the most weird smile ever. Not able to withstand such an intense gaze attack coupled
with a perpetual amusing grin, my mother grew increasingly uncomfortable and silently toyed with the options
of confronting the boy herself or bringing my dad, so far blissfully unaware of the scenario and busy solving
the crossword in the newspaper, into the picture. Finally she settled on the former and made an interrogative
hand gesture to the boy meaning to ask ‘what’s so funny?’

 To her utter surprise and increasing dismay, the boy chose neither to respond nor to shy away. In fact his
stare got a bit intense and the grin on his face a tad bit wider. However, this rather silent hand gesture by my
mom didn’t go totally unnoticed as it was seen by the boy’s little sister who was now poking her elbow quite
forcefully in her mother’s waist trying to draw her attention to what was happening. After a few unsuccessful
attempts, her little elbow found some respect through the enormity of her mom’s waistline and she
turned her attention to what was happening. She immediately understood what was wrong and in an
explanatory tone told my mother, ”he’s not looking at you”.

 The boy suddenly tilted his head on hearing his mom’s loudly spoken words and this time he lowered
his eyes while his mother further explained, “ you see, he has a vision defect”. Before my mother could
even react, the man sitting on the upper berth decided to intervene in a typical manner every Indian
considers his birth-right and gave his explanation, “Oh madam, he has a ‘looking at London and talking
to Tokyo’ type of problem”. Amidst the silly giggles his remark prompted from some fellow passengers,
it dawned upon my mother that the boy had a squint in his eyes – and that all this while, he wasn’t
looking at her at all.

 His parents looked distinctly embarrassed at this point and while the boy continued to look down
with an expressionless face, his mom glared at the man on the upper berth and said to my mother,
in a rather hurt tone, “ if he had been blind, these very people would have regarded him with compassion,
and felt generous while doing it. But thanks to his ‘funny disability’, he would only be ridiculed all his life.
And he still dreams of doing something big and ‘reaching for the stars’ someday”. My mother had an ashen
face with a mixed feeling of guilt and helplessness.

The atmosphere had suddenly become very heavy and even my dad was listening now, the newspaper
folded on his lap. Suddenly the young boy with the squint looked up and spoke, with his eyes fixed straight
on the window pane and it took my mother a few seconds to realize that he was addressing her.
“Maa’m, please don’t feel bad about what my mom said. I find myself having a rather advantage.
If I want, I can look at the answer sheet of the fellow sitting next to me during exams and no one would
come to know !”, he said cheerfully, “though I’ve never felt the need to do that”, he added, with a proud
expression on his face. At this his father spoke up “he has been an exemplary student all along”.

By then the sombre atmosphere had begun to lighten up a bit. “ I can even stare at beautiful girls
and claim I was looking elsewhere”, the boy joked with a mischievous wink, and everyone around,
including the gentleman on the berth above, laughed heartily. 

“Not everyone has the gift of being able to observe something or someone without getting observed.
And I do”, the boy said, with his head held high. “I am not ashamed of my vision maa’m. I am thankful to God for it”.

“And just to explain why I was smiling earlier”, he pointed towards the unfinished crossword in
my father’s lap, “the eight lettered noun for ‘a situation with lack of variety’ would be ‘monotony’ and not ‘marriage’ !!”.
Everyone including my dad burst into laughter at this and my mother, misty eyed at the sheer spirit of
the young boy told her mom, “You know something, your son should not even try to
reach for the stars – he IS one !!”