Autism Awareness Special Edition I
By Moinak Dutta
Full of colors
As if a rainbow had descended upon his scrapbook!
When he was born, I remember how I had dreamt
Of him becoming big, one day like other kids,
Ryan had been the eye candy
Fair with pinkish hues on his cheeks,
And how we tried to build our little things around him,
Our world was around his needs,
And he would rarely talk back,
Even when he was three years
He would only shout and scream,
I asked my spouse
One day after gathering enough courage
To face any truth
‘Is he okay?’
We went to the doc,
And again I asked the same thing
‘Is he okay?’
The doc nodded his head
Somewhat dubiously,
‘He is, I’m afraid, in the spectrum’
‘Spectrum?’
‘What spectrum?’
My spouse asked him,
She was having beads of sweat
On her forehead
And on the tip of her nose,
‘Gosh…we are so lost’
I thought I heard my wife almost cry,
Was she wailing?
Perhaps.
Then on
We are living on the spectrum
Of light
Punctuated by dots of inexpressible silence,
Silence was the key word of Ryan,
He remained silent,
Ages grew,
The trees in our backyard grew too,
Ryan turned ten,
Silently,
Almost stealthily,
Then one day…
(Probably that day was Sunday,
I was reclining on the sofa,
Ryan was sitting beside me with a scrapbook)
I noticed (quite nonchalantly)
Ryan was drawing pictures!
How wonderful the drawing looked
Full of colors
As if a rainbow had descended upon his scrapbook!
I looked and looked
The spectrum of colors
Filled me.
Click here to read more poems on Autism Awareness in our Special 1
