Poem 8 by Tito Mukhopadhyay (An excerpt from Portia Iversen's Strange Son)
In a place called Somewhere there lived happiness
Somewhere was a place of Paradise
But one day from Nowhere
Came Sorrow from the place called Nowhere
Happiness asked Sorrow to leave
The place called Somewhere
Sorrow went back to Nowhere
And then occupied the hearts of people
Who are kind and compassionate
As they never refused anybody a place to stay
So if you feel the pain
Which a person who lost his mind bears
If your heart aches when you see a tear in someone's eyes
If you are ready to accept such a person and help him
You can be sure
You have sheltered Sorrow in your heart.
This made me cry, and all the more because Tito is severely autistic (i.e. negligible speech, no control over behaviour, arm flapping etc) and who could ever dream such a mind existed under the autistic shell. How can it be true that autistic persons know no empathy and lack theory of mind when this poem exists??? I am boggled.
Have a look at Tito on a documentary. I've yet to finish the book, but I am getting increasingly fascinated.
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