Skip to content Skip to navigation

Disability defeated by willpower

 Rakesh with wife and son

Will power has an important role in human life and those who have stamina to fight all odds, set an example for others to follow for a successful life. Even disability can be defeated if a person has determination to lead a peaceful life. We find a number of cases in the world when people lose heart on their failures in life. At the same time there are certain exceptions, who despite many odds in their life make it worth living by their strong will power. Here is an example of the life of a person who came out from a small village of Siyani Belchhi in the district of Jamui in Bihar. Born on January 2,1952, Rakesh Pathak became a handicap suffering from paralysis in his right leg at his tender age of two years. He passed his childhood and primary schooling in a small village of Banka district in Bihar. Afterwards, he shifted to Bhagalpur and completed his matriculation examination from Bahadurpur High School. For higher education he had to go Patiala, where he completed his degree examination in Arts from Punjabi University. In search of livelihood he came to Guwahati during year 1978. Life was tough, but he has to live it, so he started private tuitions and subsequently joined some private schools. He became very popular in the locality as a Hindi teacher in due course.

Meanwhile, he was offered a jobs in local Hindi daily newspapers as a journalist. After half a decade serving as a journalist, Rakesh returned to the teaching profession and joined a private school as Senior Hindi teacher. Destiny had to test his patience further and in February 2000 his left leg and hand suffered heavy paralysis attack. He lost his school job as he became completely invalid. Even it was not possible for him to go for toilet without the help of his wife Rani and son Samir. Now he is completely bed-ridden. Some students come to his room for taking tuitions, which is the main source of his income. Rest of the time he passes in reading, writing and translating eminent Assamese writers’ books in Hindi. He has done good study of Assamese literature. Asom Rashtra Bhasha Prachar Samiti got a number of history, geography and social studies text books from class seven to ten, translated in Hindi by him. He has become a bridge between the Assamese and Hindi literature. His translation of eminent Assamese writer Rajani Kanta Bardoloi’s novel ‘Manomati’ was published by Gyan Vigyan Samiti. Sentinel Hindi newspaper published in series Ranju Hazarika’s novel ‘Ek Dweep Sat Kabra’. Sahitya Academy awardees novel ‘Abhiyatri’ written by Nirupama Borgohain was also translated in Hindi by Rakesh Pathak for Doordarshan. Besides, he keeps himself busy in the translation works in Hindi from other languages. A few books written by him in ‘Angika’, (which is a native language) have been published. On January 3, 2014, Rakesh Pathak was felicitated by Jahnavee Angika Sanskriti Sansthan for Hindi and Angika writings.

Since the year 2000, Rakesh Pathak keeps himself busy with independent writing, freelance journalism and Hindi teaching. He is not a beneficiary from government agencies or other institutions. He needs cooperation not kindness. (He can be contacted on his mobile No.09864150953).

Comments

Akansha Kaushik's picture

Could you please suggest me any Assamese or any Indian novel or short stories with characters with intellectual disability

Pages

Add new comment

Random Stories

Living with floods is their destiny

22 Dec 2008 - 2:22am | editor
25 years old Mr. Shravan Kumar becomes very happy when he sees his growing agriculture fields. He did his post-graduation and Bachelor of Education form Gorakhpur. He says proudly, 'I love doing...

Gogoi slams Modi on dam issue

20 May 2015 - 8:16am | AT News
Chief minister Tarun Gogoi has come down heavily on Narendra Modi for not raising the dam issue before Chinese authority. In a statement, Gogoi said the prime minister could have convinced the...

Rongali Bihu celebrated in Ukraine

22 Apr 2009 - 1:28am | audityadutta
The students of Ternopil State Medical University, Ukrain celebrated the Rongali Bihu on April 16. Various performances such as bihu dance, songs, comedy shows were performed during the event. A...

Gogoi leaving for Tripura

20 Feb 2008 - 4:32am | editor
Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi is leaving for Tripura on Wednesday to campaign for the upcoming Assembly polls slated for February 23. According to information, Mr Gogoi is schedule to address poll...

Other Contents by Author

Bodoland Territorial Autonomous District (BTAD) is facing problems of rampant extortion from businessmen, farmers, employees and general people and kidnapping of businessmen. The business community like Hindi and Bengali speaking are largely targeted by some illusive extremist elements whose real objective is to make money for them and create terror in the area. The premier students’ organization of Bodoland, All Bodo Students Union (ABSU) through a memorandum,  has urged the Union Home Minister, Sushil Kumar Shinde to take action against ongoing acts of kidnapping, extortion and illegal taxations in the area due to failure of law and order.The workers and farmers belonging to Bodos...
Save Assam, a voluntary organization of the state of Assam has requested the Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh to reject the ongoing demands of further dividing Assam by several organizations and get necessary amendments in the Constitution of India to include the Koch Rajbongshis, Ahom, Chutia,Moran, Matok and Tea Tribes in the list of Scheduled tribes.In a memorandum recently sent to the Prime Minister, the organization has said that since the independence of the country, Assam has been cut short several times. During the year1963, a new state namely, Nagaland came into existence by cutting a part of the state. Again during the year 1971 two other states, namely, Mizoram and Meghalaya...
Out of 543 Lok Sabha and 242 Rajya Sabha members about 146 (104 and 42 respectively) are beneficiary of drawing public money through Parliamentary secretariat on account of availing services of their kin as their personal secretaries and assistants. Among them there are five Parliament members from Assam. It is reported that they are drawing rupees thirty thousand per month from parliamentary secretariat on account of their family members like father, wife, daughter etc. According to sources in parliamentary secretariat, Rajya Sabha member Bhubaneswar Kalita, Barpeta’s MP Ismail Hussain, Guwahati’s MP Bijoya Chakravorty, Nagaon’s MP Rajen Gohain and BPF MP S K Bwismuthiary are drawing all...
Higher and technical educational scenario of the Northeastern region have been drastically changing from last five years. Although facilities of world class institutions are now available in the region itself, every year a large number of students from the region fall in the trap of not only fake institutions, but also some approved institutions without required facilities because of their colorful advertisements and aggressive marketing. Thus spake M Haque, the president of North East Forum for Technical Institutions while addressing the media recently in Guwahati.The North East Forum for Technical Institutions (NEFTi) is the first of its kind initiative with an objective to work for...
Tripura state government has put the state on top in implementation of MGENREGA scheme for the fourth time during the financial year 2012-13. The state has kept itself on the top by providing 86 workdays against the prescribed 100 days, whereas the national figure stood 39 workdays during this period. Addressing the media persons in Agartala recently, Tripura’s rural development minister, Jitendra Choudhury said that even during the years 2011-12, the state achieved the target of 86 workdays. The state of Mizoram got the second position in the country by working 69.25 workdays. The state of Tamil Nadu by achieving 51.26 days was the third and Andhra Pradesh stood fourth by providing 49.61...
The essence of a woman is very difficult to be comprehended as a woman is the origin of child and she is the core of the family. Unfortunately, due to the age old customs and prejudices prevalent in our society, she is made to feel inferior and gradually one perceived her to be weak. Injustice and discrimination against women started to occur and in modern times it reached an alarming rate and hence a situation arose where it became imperative to take measurers to prevent such atrocities towards women, argued a number of social activist belonging to Prithibi, an NGO for women and children on the recent Women’s Day on 8th of March 2013.Prithibi, the NGO is working for welfare of women and...
The Congress Party general secretary, Rahul Gandhi, projected by his party as the future prime minister of the country, has proved to be failure for the post due to his shyness and escaping from sharing administrative responsibilities despite frequent appeals by the Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh. The young and old party leaders providing encouraging support in his favor also desired that he should come at the forefront now and make the party’s future strong enough. Rahul Gandhi might be feeling uncomfortable assessing his own ability as during the earlier Assembly elections in Bihar, he was asked to campaign against the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA), but his party’s position...
Assam government’s dubious decisions and bias actions are giving birth to new problems for thepeaceful citizens of the state day by day. The Dimasa dominated North Cachar Hills Autonomous Councilhad earlier in the year 2008 demanded to change the name of the district after the Dimasa. The district’sNon-Dimasa people raised their voice against this demand. They formed a new platform to protest bythe name of Indigenous Peoples’ Forum (IPF).The Government of Assam bowed down before the tyrannical demand of DHD(J) to change the districtsname as Dima Hasao on March 30,2010 in the backdrop of the rupees thousand crore scam in thedistrict, said IPF General Secretary, Ngaidam...
Asian Centre for Human Rights (ACHR) in its latest report released in Guwahati on October 22, 2012 has claimed that juvenile justice in Manipur has been suspended by the Ministry of Women and Child Development due to corruption and misuse of the resources. The Manipur government had claimed that Juvenile Justice Boards (JJBs) have been set up in all the nine districts and the Project Approval Board (PAB) for the Integrated Child Protection Scheme (ICPS) of the WCD ministry in its 14th meeting on 22 February 2011 approved the grants for nine JJBs. However, the state government failed to establish the JJBs, the PAB in its meeting held on January 17, 2012 and the ministry had no other option...
Mahatma Gandhi had expressed his clear view on the importance of ‘healthy work culture’ in the Harijan newspaper of 15th October, 1938, emphasizing on hard work by the people of the country, for attaining the goal of freedom. He dared to declare as ‘declaring my birthday as a holiday should be treated as a cognizable offence’. This was a clear indication that the “Great Soul’ was confident of the might of his people, which later on succeeded in bringing freedom to the country. His experiments on Swadeshi movement brought good results. But the present situation has completely changed the whole thing and his dreams are shattered. Unfortunately, with...