Six-year-old autistic kid authors book

CHENNAI: It even took Proust (that king among French writers) some 13 years to pen his last work, which he incidentally never finished because of his untimely demise. But all it took six-year-old Vishal to write his first book Meadow of Moods is a paltry 10 days. And if you think that it’s any achievement at all, add to the fact that he has been suffering from autism and you can’t help but applaud the slender lad. “We went for an autism conference in Bangalore sometime back and it was there that Vishal saw a book written by a 36-year-old autism affected person,” explains Vidya Anand, Vishal’s mother, “The minute he saw that, he looked at me and said ‘Amma, I want to write a book too’ and that was it.”Launching the colourful book, with a picture of himself on the cover, at the Rajan Eye Care Hospital here, Vishal remained characteristically shy and socially apprehensive, until he was allowed to use a computer keyboard connected to a giant screen. “Now, you can ask him any question you want and he will answer elaborately,” smiled Ganesh, a Neuro-Linguistic Programmer who has worked extensively with Vishal. And then, the magic began to unfold. As the audience began to ask questions about himself, he typed them out with elan -- ‘I like Physics, it is my elixir’. Answering to a query about the founder of Apple, he wrote, ‘Steve Jobs is a visionary who invented tablets with 3G technology.’ Veteran educator YG Parthasarathy, who released the first of the 100 copies printed, said, “Perhaps, he was a great physicist in his last birth and now we are just not gifted enough to understand what way he is using to express his genius.” Apparently, a week after he was discharged from a regular school, his mother found Vishal suddenly re-doing the math and science that he struggled with in school, “Then, I put him in Sankalp - a special school, where he has been really happy ever since.”“This book should inspire more children and parents who grapple with autism to tap the potential that is inside them. It’s a simple matter of realising that they have different ways of expressing their genius,” says an excited Priya. Vishal has displayed a keen interest towards physics and is hopeful of writing another book with research and findings in the science-based subject. “It will be a challenge, but my son is a treasure-chest of opportunities,” she adds.