This is a subject that fascinates me – the many ‘super-achievers’ who suffered from some disability of the other. At the top of my mind are names like Stevie Wonder (born 1950), Stephen Hawking (1942-2018), Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945), Helen Keller (1880-1968), Louis Braille (1809-1852) – all of course very famous personalities credited with huge achievements. Closer home, and more recent, we have Arunima Sinha (born 1988), Ira Singhal (born 1983), Sudha Chandran (born 1965) – once again, household Indian names, credited with unprecedented success in their chosen fields. I am sure, there are many more – perhaps even more distinguished – and this list is by no means either exhaustive or in any particular sequence.
So, is it really fair to call them persons with disabilities? Aren’t they all ‘more able’ than any of us? Anyway, let me come back to this after briefly describing – even though you may have heard and read this before – what these ‘super-achievers’ did. Stevie Wonder went blind shortly after birth and yet trained himself to be one of the greatest singers the world has seen. Stephen Hawking contracted ‘motor neuron disease’ at the age of 21, was given just two years to live, and went on to become one of the most distinguished professors at Cambridge. He became a renowned physicist and cosmologist and brilliant author of immortal books like ‘A Brief History of Time’.
This story is from the May 2020 edition of Dignity Dialogue.
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This story is from the May 2020 edition of Dignity Dialogue.
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