When I look back upon yesteryears - going back to my school days - i remember myself trying to feel how people who are visually handicapped would feel about this world. I remember trying to emulate them, by walking with my eyes closed depending on my sensory powers ; trying to take up or down stairs and feeling what difficulty they would face ; trying to understand what colors would mean to them - coz not even black and white is significant to them. I remember thinking of the anguish one would feel, who had eyes and then lost it. That was more painful than people who never saw.
Always felt for them, then worked for a Blind School in my vicinity and understanding them better. And then, again, I was taken over by the life, running for a survival and the emotions got boxed in. I have never really understood what people think of these people or what they really say about. At most, I have seen sympathy as well as empathy. Have never seen organisations really working for them barring a few here and there. About government, the less said the better.
After shifting to Delhi, through some good people, I came in contact with a blind school being run for women - i was told that I could do some work with them by guiding them how to go for corporate interverviews and what to talk etc., but then I was not being able to take out time regularly in a fixed slot and that was creating trouble for them as well as me, and had to back out.
I saw a blind school very near to my place, where I have shifted. I see these people, walking with confidence, smiling, laughing, discussing, while trying to find their way out in the mess which is the traffic, in a residential area - cars zooming past, autoricshaws going haywires, richshaws taking sharp turns and not to talk about 2-wheelers, half of the riders thinking they are riding superbikes - no less. I feel that they have a different world altogether. But here I see a difference, I have often seen people, having disdain - on the other hand I have seen people really helping them out to cross a road. That fills the heart with such emotions. I wish I could do something for them. Something more concrete, something more which will bring more joy for them and something which will bring more importance to them, to let them feel more proud, confident and human. I wonder what I am going to do. I wish I could provide some jobs to them. I wish I could provide some books for them. But wishes, wishes and more wishes. What I really need to do at this point of time is go and talk to the administrator and understand in what manner I can be of any help to them.
I remember an ad on the TV showing a blind school and its students trying to play holi - it was so touching it brought tears to my eyes. And made me feel like a human again :)
4 comments:
Sometimes blindness is more a state of mind than an actual physical state. When I was in university, I worked with students who I thought were less fortunate than me, because they had been deprived of something I took for granted, like sight or hearing. And I learnt that they had different talents, which I didn't, gifts that I had never enjoyed. Maybe we just have to stop thinking of things life in terms of 'us and them'. Maybe?
D
You are so very right. The feelings were different - in past and in present. Earlier, it was different to me, but now when I mention my neighbors - I have seen them in a new perspective. They laugh, they are confident, gossip amongst themselves and take a walk late evening and early morning and I see them going out for some work. Am sorry for using the words 'we' and 'them' - that was not a direct classification, but yes, I will accept some classification was there, though unintentional and indirect. They sure have certain gifts which we do not have. And I have felt and known it all the times. Its just that it touches me somehow. That feeling really cannot be explained - its somewhere very close to life. It does not make me sad or happy, it just touches some chord, maybe makes me more emotional. In what terms, I would not know.
You have written beautifully - I wish I had a 'gift' like this, of such beautiful words and expression.
And I will keep in my mind what you said, though can't promise that I will stop myself from being moved :)
I think thoughts of these kinds hardly hit anyone's mind these days! I respect the initiatives that you have taken and acknowledge the efforts that we fail to take!
Kudos!
Thanks, Cheena. But let me tell you that I am not alone, there are so many people who think on the same lines, with emotions..there is not any dearth, but most of the times, we allow them to be invisible. The point is one should always let the emotions be alive...whatever it relates to. And I guess, that's what makes us 'human'.
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