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Rohan Doodnauth for ‘Special Person of the Year’

Sep 11, 2014 Letters

DEAR EDITOR,
I would like to respond to KN article on August 31, 2014, “Strong-willed engineer, Rohan Doodnauth, is a ‘Special Person.’”
In my opinion, he is an extraordinary and inspiring person. In a society plague by beggars, laziness, people who want to be pitied, and people who always looking for a handout, Rohan stands out as a different breed. He doesn’t believe in begging. He likes to work hard and doesn’t want to be pitied.
He also doesn’t believe in giving up; he is unbelievably resilient. Nothing can hold him back, not a broken spine, not thieves who robbed him, and not even the wheel chair to which he is confined. Men like him are born that way; they’re not made that way.
When life gives them lime, they make lime drink (swank) with it. They never give up, and they never, never surrender. They never ask, why me? Rather, they say why not me. They never see themselves as victims but as victorious.
In addition, they always turn tragedy into triumph. After he suffered a spinal injury, Rohan used his setback to teach school drop-outs welding so that they can better themselves. And in the process of them bettering themselves, he became better. You have to give in order to receive. He gave to the boys, and he received a new and better life from God.
His disability didn’t make him a stronger man; rather it revealed to him the man he was on the inside. Tragedy doesn’t make us who we are, it reveal to us who we are.
After the tragedy, he felt down and depressed, but he refused to stay down and depressed; instead, he chose to stand up and fight against the depression. It’s a fact that during adversity, most people choose to stay down and give up rather than get up and not give up, but not Rohan, he is not like most people.
During our adversity, God always sends a messenger to bring hope and comfort. In Rohan’s case, God sent him a messenger (one of Rohan’s friends). God’s messenger encouraged him to open a machine shop, which he did. God will only send the messenger when we are willing to do what He says.
Rohan listened to the advice because he didn’t want to spend his life depending on people for handouts. This is why he refused to take gifts from people who felt sorry for him. He believes that people who chose to be pitied will remain poor, and those who refused to be pitied will become rich.
To succeed in life, he believes that it’s better to give a man or woman a fishing pole than a fish. The messenger of God told Rohan he wanted him to become a teacher and to teach boys how to weld.
Always remember that a tragedy can make us better or bitter. His tragedy made him better. He believes that whenever a person encounters a tragedy, the best way to overcome it is to try to help others and not yourself, and by helping others, we are helping ourselves.
I believe Rohan picked the most difficult group (school drop-outs) of boys to help because no one else wanted to help them. Nobody wants to work with school drop-outs; most of them are dunces, lazy, indisciplined, and rejects. I know this for a fact, because I was a school drop-out.
And I believe that if it wasn’t for the accident, Rohan probably wouldn’t want to work with them either, but the accident made him more compassionate and gave him compassion for them.
Even though I have never met Rohan, his story, perseverance, determination, and resiliency inspired me; he is an unusually rare disabled person and an even rarer human being. I would like to encourage you to start a weekly column in your newspaper on inspirational Guyanese living inside and outside of Guyana. And I would like to nominate Rohan for the special person of the year award.
Anthony Pantlitz

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