Choices is Ours...

We all know it; in fact we have been reading this since our childhood, ‘When not interfered, everything nature does is done with perfection!’ We have learnt it in our school textbooks and we all do agree with it... but when I see those little angles on 4thfloor of Emergency building of IGMC ( that is our Prdiatrics ward) suffering from diseases which have got no cure and which are going to make the life of these little angles miserable one, I ponder where has the natural order of things gone? Where is the so called nature’s perfectness?


I know you too agree on this point. But if we think deeply we realize that these are the situations where we as human race are tested! I believe that when children like these, who are mentally and physically challenged come into the world, an opportunity to realize true human nature presents itself, and it comes in the way we people accept and treat these children!
Here is a little story that proves it. When I read it, it stirred me to think if I would have made the same choice? And here I ask you: Would you have too?

A father and his little angle, who was mentally challenged, were walking in a park. There were few boys playing cricket in the park. That little boy asked his father, “Dad, do you think they’ll let me play?” Father knew that most of the boys would not want someone like his son on their side, but as a father he knew that if his son was allowed to play, I will hugely boost his son’s confidence as being accepted by others in spite of his handicaps!
He approached one of the boys on the field and asked if his son could play. The boy looked around for some guidance and said, ‘We need seven runs to and the game is in the last over and we are eight down! I guess he can be in our team and I’ll let him bat if wicket falls!’ The reply was a surprise to the father.
He watched his son with a speck of tear in the corner of his eyes as his son struggled with the pads and gloves while dressing up for his turn, but with a broad smile altogether on his face. His team scored few runs when the set batsman of the team got out. His team needed two runs of three balls.
At this juncture, if the captain sends the boy to bat he gives away all his team’s chance of sure victory or he sends his regulars and deprives the kid of much needed confidence booster!
Surprisingly, the boy was given the bat. Everyone watching the game knew the game was lost as the boy didn’t even know how to hold the bat properly, what to talk of well placed shot!!
However, the kid took his stance, struggled to look to the bowler through the helmet, held his bat and swung clumsily at the ball and missed. Now two runs of two balls needed. The bowler realizing that the other team was putting winning aside for this moment in the Kid’s life, shortened his run up and tossed the penultimate ball of the over softly towards the kid. Big swing of bat but a miss! Now two of one!!
Bowler tossed the last ball of the over towards the kid this time even slower. The kid swung the bat with all his effort and somehow was able to make the connection. But it was a weak grounded shot directly to short mid-off.
The game would have been finished by now had the fielder at short mid-off have not deliberately missed the ball. All the spectators started shouting “Run kid! Run!!” Never in life had the kid ran that far, but he somehow scampered down to the non strikers end, wide eyed and startled. Everyone yelled, ‘Second Run kid! Second Run kid!!’ Catching his breath, kid awkwardly ran towards striker’s end. The smallest guy of the team now had his first chance to be the hero of his team!
By this time the fielder had already gathered the ball and was well within the inner circle. He could have easily thrown the ball to the striker’s end towards which the kid running rather struggling and got him out but he intentionally threw it to the non-striker’s end! All were screaming, ‘Come on kid! Come on!! You can do it!!’ The kid ran to striker’s end, though struggling not to fall on the way. As he reached the striker’s end he was cheered as the hero who has helped his team win World cup single handed!
The kid could not make it to the next year. He died that winter, having never forgotten being the hero! The few boys of both the teams that day helped bring a piece of true love and humanity into this world and made a troubled heart sing...

We all have thousands of opportunities every single day to help realize the ‘Natural order of things’. So many seemingly trivial interactions between two people present us with a choice: “Do we pass along a little spark of love and humanity or do we let those opportunities pass and leave the world a bit colder in the process?”
A wise man once said, “Every society is judged by how it treats it’s least fortunate amongst them.” Give it a thought friends !!
Dr. Virat Kuntalam.
Indira Gandhi Medical College,
Shimla, HP.

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