By Rev Fr Giles Ngwa Forteh
Hero to Zero is the title of a truly edifying and inspiring book by Hedwig Lewis. Setting out with the intention of galvanizing the despondent to explore their latent talents in view of getting the most out of their lives, the author presents a gallery of "heroes", illustrious persons who were either classified as "zero" - not worthy to stand up and be counted, or who started their climb to the summit from a point of total obscurity ( the point of "zero") - from scratch, with nothing on which to cling and thrust forward (save God's grace), and even nobody to encourage and orientate them.
Defying all odds and refusing to become impotently obsessed with their handicaps, they took the direction of their strengths, big and small, each one in his or her own circumstance and time, and rose to become heroes and heroines in their own way and in their own world.
The inner power in them drove their minds and hearts to transcend their "physical" limitations and bring joy to their own lives, as well as those of others. Nothing in the record of human achievements will ever be more spectacular than those cases of handicapped men and women who, accepting themselves and putting to maximum use the little they have, have illustrated what Dr. Alfred Adler once called "The human being's power to turn a minus into a plus." We speak specifically of the ordinary heroes and heroines who suffer physical disabilities and deficiencies - blindness, deafness, muteness, low intelligence, loss of limbs, depression, those who are psychologically, intellectually, socially and economically disadvantaged, either from birth or through 'accidents'.
For them, what the world considers their handicaps and deficiencies are but the springboards to achievement and self-fulfilment. Through ingenious methods these ordinary "heroes" and "heroines" let their spirits soar to unimaginable heights. Their ingenuity, courage and determination fill us with awe and admiration. What marks these achievers apart is the fact that they began their heroic life as "zeros".
The stories of Sheila, the armless artist from Uttar Pradesh, Frontline Captain Pankaj Joshi, and Francis Thompson the 19th century English poet, are the most convincing illustrations of inner power, determination and hard work. Sheila is the eldest child in a poor factory-worker's family in Uttar Pradesh, India. In 1977, when she was about four years old, Sheila lost both hands in a train accident that killed her mother, with whom she was travelling.
As the child saw her friends go to school, scribble in their notebooks and draw houses and flowers, she began to imitate them. Except that, with no hands she had to learn first to work with a pencil held between her toes. Seeing her perseverance, her father got her admitted into the local primary school. That was the impetus the physically disabled girl needed to make a mark in life. After completing her intermediate education, the enterprising student earned a Bachelor in Fine Arts and then decided to take up painting as a career at the National Lalit Kendra (Art Centre) in Lucknow.
People gawk at her as she sits down to paint, nonchalantly adjusting a brush between the toes of her left foot. And a trifle self-consciously, she says 'For me, this makes no difference. In my childhood I used to hold a pencil with my toes. Now it is a brush. That's all.' Talking about her success at the Centre, she confided to a magazine reporter, 'I vowed to become an artist when I grew up. This was a big challenge for me.
Hard work and determination brought me here and, in the process, I often forgot that I had a handicap. Now it makes no difference.' Sheila participated in many state-level art exhibitions. She is equally at ease with mediums, oil and water-colour. Her canvasses fetch much money. Sheila paints not only for pleasure, but also to support her family. ((Hedwig Lewis, Zero to Hero, pp. 13-14) Frontline Captain Pankaj Joshi is a great source of inspiration. At the end of the 1965 War, the Indian army began removing mines left by the soldiers in Sikkim.
In 1967, an undetected mine blew up, injuring twenty-four-year old Captain Pankaj Joshi. His legs had to be amputated below the knees. Pankaj refused to wallow in self-pity or to put aside his uniform, but he mustered up enough courage to face the battles of life. After several surgical operations, he lay in bed for eight months to allow the injuries to heal. In 1968, the young Captain was then transported to the artificial Limb Centre in Pune, to get a pair of limbs fitted to his legs.
Unwilling to settle down for a routine desk job, Pankaj was deployed with 1/8 Gorkha Rifles (now 3 Mech Infantry), where he decided to prove that he was as good as - and even better than - the next man. He began with cycling, punishing himself for hours. Soon the adventurous officer began swimming, walking briskly, horse riding and also going on long treks. Meanwhile, he completed a diploma in Rusian from the Jawaharlal Nehru University and a diploma in National Defence University, Washington D.C. Captain Pankaj Joshi held several appointments. He was promoted as brigadier in 1988, rising to the rank of a Major General in 1993, and took charge of the Mechanised Infantry Regiment in 1997.
He would stand erect for nearly two hours to receive the guard of honour, the young recruits hardly believing that their commanding officer had two artificial limbs. On September 30, 2000, Lt-General Pankaj Joshi took charge of Central Command. All hands rise in salute of the brave man who won the real battle of life. ( Ibid. , pp. 28-29) Judged by ordinary standards, the life of Francis Thompson, the 19th century English poet, was a miserable failure. He failed successively as a student, a book agent, a shoemaker's apprentice, and a soldier.
At 21, he was a drug-addict, prematurely aged, sleeping on park benches and writing poems on wrapping paper, making his living by running errands and selling matches. Then he was discovered by an editor, Wilfrid Meyness, and his wife Alice, herself a poet. They saw in this errant boy a "raw diamond" and caused his talent to emerge and blossom. Thompson went to live with them, and stayed with them for year, until he died. He devoted himself wholeheartedly to his writings, and his talent was recognised.
Of his works, one, his great religious poem - The Hound of Heaven - won a place among the most celebrated minor poems in the English language. ( Ibid. , p. 117)
The lives of the heroes and the heroine which we have just described propose to us a philosophy of living and doing, namely, that we must appreciate what we have and use it to obtain what we want, and that it takes self-confidence and courage to weather all storms and cross new horizons.
Whatever our handicaps may be, our possibilities are those of handicapped persons and they are usually unlimited. We all could be more than what we presently are.
"To every man there openeth
A Way, and Ways, and a Way,
The High Soul climbs the High Way,
The Low Soul gropes the Low,
And in between on the misty flats,
The rest drift to and fro.
But to every man there openeth
A high way and a low.
And every man decideth
The way his soul shall go."
(John Ohenham)
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