Beautifully expressed, Rishabh. Please keep sharing more. You are very good. Best Sandeep
On Fri, May 22, 2026 at 1:01 PM Rishabh Gupta <[email protected]> wrote: > I have low vision. But this story isn't really about that. > > This morning my dad started telling stories about me as a kid. > > One — I once painted my friend's entire house without him ever asking. > Just decided it needed painting. So I painted it. His mom cried. We still > don't know if it was happy or not. > > Two — I splashed a full bottle of cold water on a police officer. Not by > accident. He looked hot. I was being helpful. > > Three — I slapped someone seven years older than me because I thought he > was hitting my brother. I was probably half his size. He was so shocked he > just — walked away. I think I scared him more than hurt him. > > We were all in the car. Everyone was laughing. My dad was laughing the > hardest — the way parents laugh at stories they probably should have been > more worried about at the time. > > And then my bhabhi — barely a few months in this family, still figuring > out which shelf the glasses go on — said something so casually it almost > didn't land. > > "He's the same, na. Same as he is now." > > The car went quiet for half a second. > > Then everyone agreed. Like it was obvious. > > And I just sat there by the window — watching the road I couldn't fully > see — thinking about how strange it is to be known. > > Because she has no idea how hard that is to hear. In the best possible way. > > She joined this family after the storm had passed. She came in when the > house was already clean — she never saw what the floor looked like when > everything broke. > > She never saw the version of me that went missing for a while. > > The one that got quieter. That stopped painting houses uninvited. That > learned to ask for permission before taking up space. That flinched a > little — just a little — before laughing too loud in a room full of people > who could see things he couldn't. > > My sight was changing. And something else was changing with it — something > harder to name. > > When your body changes, your relationship with yourself changes too. > Nobody prepares you for that part. There's no pamphlet. No one sits you > down and says — by the way, you might lose yourself a little. Don't panic. > You'll find your way back. > > The feeling of being at home in yourself — that went somewhere for a while. > > I looked for it in all the wrong places. Performed okayness so well I > almost forgot what the real thing felt like. Smiled at the right moments. > Said the right things. Became very good at being fine. > > And then slowly — without any single moment I can point to — like a colour > returning to something that had faded — > > Rishu came back. > > Rishu is what people who love me call me. He went somewhere for a while. > And the people who stayed through the quiet — the ones who kept telling the > stories, who kept laughing at the memories, who never stopped seeing the > kid who painted houses and splashed police officers — they knew he would > come back. > > They just waited. > > Not the same. Not exactly. > > The paint became words. The cold water became wit. The slap became a sharp > tongue and a quicker mind. The fearlessness — that stayed. That never > actually left. > > It was just waiting for me to stop apologising for it. > > My bhabhi saw none of the middle. She arrived at the part of the story > where Rishu was already back — fully, loudly, completely himself — and she > looked at him and saw the kid from the stories like they were the same > person. > > Because they are. > > Maybe that's the most honest thing — > > We spend so much time measuring the distance between who we were and who > we became. Building timelines. Marking before and after. Trying to explain > the gap to people who weren't there. > > But sometimes someone walks in fresh — someone who only knows the current > chapter — and sees no gap at all. > > Just you. Continuous. Uninterrupted. Whole. > > The car kept moving this morning. My dad kept laughing. My bhabhi had > already moved on to asking about lunch. > > And I just sat there quietly thinking — > > Rishu was always going to come back. > > He just needed to remember that taking up space was never something he > needed permission for. > > Some people paint houses without being asked. > > That was always going to be him. > > — > > If this resonates, I share more of these stories on Instagram: > @unscripted_rishabh_ > > > Rishabh Gupta > Raipur, Chhattisgarh > > -- > Disclaimer: > 1. Contents of the mails, factual, or otherwise, reflect the thinking of > the person sending the mail and AI in no way relates itself to its veracity; > > 2. AI cannot be held liable for any commission/omission based on the mails > sent through this mailing list.. > > > Search for old postings at: > http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ > --- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "AccessIndia" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To view this discussion visit > https://groups.google.com/a/accessindia.org.in/d/msgid/accessindia/CAOukPW_t2aRnrW_rVkZBFtJ2pco2iCXCE4n5GXB4PZyKbybX7Q%40mail.gmail.com > <https://groups.google.com/a/accessindia.org.in/d/msgid/accessindia/CAOukPW_t2aRnrW_rVkZBFtJ2pco2iCXCE4n5GXB4PZyKbybX7Q%40mail.gmail.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> > . > -- Warm Regards Sandeep Singh -- Disclaimer: 1. Contents of the mails, factual, or otherwise, reflect the thinking of the person sending the mail and AI in no way relates itself to its veracity; 2. AI cannot be held liable for any commission/omission based on the mails sent through this mailing list.. Search for old postings at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "AccessIndia" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/a/accessindia.org.in/d/msgid/accessindia/CAD4A2BQkvDEAnHu7NaeLROmBDgmiwDW1vCHUQVtiQ8VMehoW0w%40mail.gmail.com.
