Tito Writings

"One day I dream that we can grow in a matured society where nobody would be 'normal or abnormal' but just human beings, accepting any other human being- ready to grow together."


- Tito Rajarshi Mukhopadhyay, in The Mind Tree, Arcade Publishing, 2003© National Autistic Society


Once in a great while, a special person emerges in the history of science and medicine whose unique set of characteristics sheds light on an entire disorder and sometimes even on the mysteries of the human brain. Tito is such a person. Although he has severe autism and is nearly nonverbal, his ability to communicate through his extraordinary writing is astonishing.

Tito communicates eloquently through his writing and he has gained national recognition for his poetry. He has published his book of memoirs and poems, and plans to pursue a career as a professional writer.


Early Writings


The Mind Tree


(from the Mind Tree, Arcade Publishing, 2003, National Autistic Society)


Maybe it is night
Maybe it is day
I can?t be sure
Because I?m not yet feeling the heat of the sun
I am the mind tree
When I had been gifted this mind of mine
I recall his voice very clearly
To you I have given this mind
And you shall be the only kind
No one ever will like you be
And I name you the mind tree
I can?t see or talk
Yet I can imagine
I can hope and I can expect
I am able to feel pain but I cannot cry
So I just be and wait for the pain to subside
I can do nothing but wait
My concerns and worries
Are trapped within me somewhere in my depths
Maybe in my roots
Maybe in my bark
When he comes next who gifted me my mind
I shall ask him for the gift of sight
I doubt his return and
Yet hope for it
Maybe he will
Maybe he will not


Poem 1 listen to this poem


(from "Tito's Story", a video documentary by the BBC, April 2000)


Men and women are puzzled by everything I do
Doctors use different terminologies to describe me
I just wonder
The thoughts are bigger than I can express
Every move that I make shows how trapped I feel
Under the continuous flow of happenings
The effect of a cause becomes the cause of another effect
And I wonder
I think about the times when I change the environment around me
With the help of my imagination
I can go places that do not exist
And they are like beautiful dreams.
But it is a world full of improbabilities
Racing toward uncertainty


Poem 4 listen to this poem

(from "Tito's Story", a video documentary by the BBC, April 2000)
When you are trying to think blue
And end up thinking black
You can be sure to be frustrated
Time and again it happens to me
And I get quite helpless
Otherwise why should I get up and spin myself
Spinning my body
Brings some sort of harmony to my thoughts
So that I can centrifuge away all of the black thoughts
I realise that the faster I spin
The faster I drive away the black
When I am sure that even the last speck of black
Has gone away from me
Then I spin back in the opposite direction
And pull the blue thoughts into myself
It depends on how much blue I want
If I want more blue I have to spin faster
Otherwise not so fast
It's just like being a fan
The trouble is when I stop spinning
My body scatters
And it's so difficult to collect it together again


Recent writings


The Door Hinge


I was playing with the door hinge since early noon today. I knew nothing could stop me from playing.
They had all given up trying. They had requested me at first and then they had tried to pull me out.
Nothing stopped me.
Not even the two pm strike of the clock.
Not even the rain.


It had started raining since noon. The window brought in all that cool air that had been waiting to come in, and all the damp smell of wet earth inside the room. I am sure the hinge on the door with which I was playing could smell it too.


It never tells me anything. But I somehow know that it can sense every thing I sense.
It sensed the orange colour spreading with the two pm strike of clock as it filled up the room.


Every time the clock strikes two, both of us get prepared.
We get prepared for the orange light to come to us from the clock. The orange light joins us in our secret game.


The door hinge senses the gradual spreading of the orange colour through the mirror till every thing in the room is coloured with orange.
The green frame of the mirror gets the orange colour before any thing else. After that, the white walls begin to turn orange. Only then can the window and everything outside the window get to colour themselves with orange. Every one needs to wait for our turns to be coloured with orange light.



The door hinge can understand everything.
But now the door hinge was sticky.
The door hinge becomes sort of sticky whenever it knows that it is raining. I doubt whether it really likes the rain. It is fond of the wind. I can just guess that.
I have seen it slamming with joy when there is wind.


I guess that the door hinge tried to gather the orange colour of the two pm afternoon although the damp air prevented the colour from diffusing it completely because the grey colour of the rain was too strong for the orange to spread evenly as it does every day.


I saw the colours trying to gain strength. Sometimes it seemed as though the grey would empower the orange.


The war grew in width and depth inside my room and outside the window. I felt my breaths inhaling and exhaling the colours and felt the battle within me.
I knew the door hinge was getting alarmed.
I heard it creek. It was trying to warn the clock about the colour battle.
I had banged the door hard for my part so that the out side grey of the rain could be warned. I wanted to shout. But I could only shout through the slam of the door.


The colours had understood the cause.
They stopped their little war.
I saw the rain drops getting coloured with orange.
The door hinge had stopped the creek.