Seeing beyond his disability

LIFE at times seem like millions of riddle where the different challenges we encounter are like clues to a better life- if the answer to the riddle is wrong we are forced to live with regrets or take the mis¬take as a learning curve.
But what is important is what we have and what we can do with what is available. At times we tend to for¬get what we have until we lose it. In young love, it is often a regrettable experience to see your once sweet heart with someone new after five months of break up. Oh you wish, he had never left or he would come back one day.
Such would be the experience of someone who is recovering from losing his limbs in an accident. Imagine lying in a hospital bed with your limbs amputated after surviv¬ing a horrific car accident and a fairy god mother asked you to make a wish, surely who would ask for your limbs back.
We would always wish for that missing part of our body and soul to be what it always had been.
But for a young determined and ambitious blind lad Laru Maika 21 from Aripi village in the scenic Oro¬kolo Bay,Ihu ,Gulf Province life is not about regretting what you don’t have but achieving what you want as the best for you.
One would think all he would wish for is to have normal eye sight if he was given one wish.
Laru was born blind, but is not blind in life; he sees a picture not many of us who have perfect eye sight see.
Been blind for him is not as bad as what those of us with good eye sight may think. What matters most to him is to be a sound engineer of his own studio.
Laru lives with his parents at the Horse Camp settlement in Port Mo¬resby. He works in his little record¬ing studio at Sabama because there is no electricity to power up the old laptop and key board he borrowed from friends where he lives.
With just one keyboard and a laptop computer, he is always busy mixing sounds and recording-mostly contem-porary PNG music.
Laru never had the chance to attend any formal education for blind persons but his love for radio and music made him read, write and even use a non braille computer to record songs for his clients.
“The only thing I wish in the world is to be a sound engineer, I want to make music so I can hear the rhythm of the music and feel happy, I want people to remember Laru Maika, I want the music to say my name so no one forgets me and no one thinks that I don’t exist.” My father said I was blind so I would not attend school but stay at home and learn. That’s why even there is the St Johns blind school I never went to school,” Laru said.
He first entered the music recording industry in 2007 with his studio”Next Doors Production” and signed a con¬tract with CHM as the distributor.
However this did not last long because he ran into debt trying to pay for the hire of equipments he bor¬rowed from friends and also trying to get clients to pay him his share of the bargain -his fees
After almost two years of bad fortune, he has given a shot again at the music industry, this time with his own studio called “Rugged Recording Records”.
He grew up for with a passion of listening to music especially local Gulf band “The Lamaika” from Mea village. This passion made him love his radio more than anyone. From that little black box that requires a bit of tuning before music and news can be heard, Laru obtain his basic educa¬tion. Apart from his superb ability to use a laptop and keybord he can send text on his cell phone and can even scroll through his phone book and call people.
Laru’s first touch of a musical instru¬ment came when he bought a guitar from someone for K25 at the age of seven.
Laru said,” I don’t really know where my cousin got a guitar but he was sell¬ing it for K30. I had no idea of guitar but interest in music made me make an offer of K25 to him and surely I bought the guitar for K25.
He said without much assistance he fiddled around with the keys and strings, and tried to make music like that of Lamaika. Soon he was play¬ing a guitar like a pro. He then moved on the keyboard in almost the same way. Today, he can play both musical instruments.
With such passion and determination and support from an uncle Michael Karukuru, he started a recording career.
His triumph is commendable but it is still a struggle operates from his small studio at Sabama and one day will have to return the laptop and keyboard.
His father’s meager wallet can not support him see his dream come true.
His dream can beome a reality if a “Good Samaritan” can give this young man his only wish and to help him buy a generator so he can operate from his home as well the musical instrument.
“Life is what you make of it, make it the way you want it” this is what Laru wants and he wonders if “Good Samaritan “ out there to can make life the way he wants it so that he can find harmony in life with the music he makes and be well remembered as the blind sound engineer Laru Maika.
Laru Maika ,the blind self-taught sound engineer with a recording he has put in the CD.