We were returning from the library when we heard someone reciting a beautiful poetry. We immediately knew we had to listen to more of this, thereby, stopped by his side, requesting him for the same. We had to, it was so beautiful. That's how we met Mr Rakesh, animal care taker at our Animal Husbandry. He's been working here since 2008.
He started reciting his poem from the beginning. A poem about the unstoppable, heart wrenching flow of time which makes him more empathetic about fellow humans. We were intrigued. Every line, was so insightful yet that was not it. There was something else as well, which blew our mind away. His oration. How beautiful. How melodious. He wasn't just reciting his poems. It was a conversation through poetry. It was an hour long conversation that we had and for every philosophical dilemma we stumbled upon during this conversation, he had a poetry to enlighten us with. It felt like we were sinking into a blissful abyss.
Every poem was unique. Every poem offered an understanding of the world, rivaling greats like Rabindranath Tagore or Gulzar or Faiz Ahmad Faiz. And no, we are not exaggerating one bit. He has only studied up to 12th grade, yet his vocabulary was at par with a hindi PhD scholar. He seemed to be way smarter than an average human. He only started writing 4 years back yet he remembers each one of those complex poems and can recite them just by memory. To put this into better perspective, he has over 500 pages of his writings at his home.
We wanted to record a video of him. Share his unmatchable talent with the world. He requested us to not do that. How strange. A man as talented as he is, hiding from the public sight. Turns out, he has extreme social anxiety. He feels that people will mock him if he will share his poems with them. Even more shocking was, he was harassed so much by his peers, he has started to believe that he is a crazy person and anyone who will listen to him will laugh at him. This broke our hearts. A man, so talented and kind, made to believe that he is an anomaly, by lesser men. We quoted Friedrich Nietzsche to help him understand that there is nothing wrong with him. "And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music."
We have never met a kinder, wiser person before. His wisdom left us awe struck. We counseled him about his fear regarding people. Offered to help him publish his own book containing all these beautiful poems. However, before that, we want this unsung genius to be known and appreciated by the whole UPUMS family. We're planning to give him a chance to showcase his talent infront of students, faculty and administration in the upcoming event so that he gets the appreciation and respect he so rightly deserves.
- Story by Harsh and Geetika
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