Its been close to a month since I penned down something. The last post was about a great cause & I got mixed emotion about it. Well, this one is different. It is different in the fact that I assume my readers (if any) would completely agree with what I am about to write. So without further adieu, let me introduce the main character of today's post - my left toe. Yup, thats right, the central character of my post is not me, but my left toe. Well its about an incident which happened when I was small. When I mean small, I mean not so long back, ie; 6years old. It was one of those dry summer nights when I had gone to bed & woke up in the middle of the night for a drink. So, I got out of bed, slipped out of the room & into the kitchen. It was pitch dark & I decided to skip switching on the light. I started feeling around the room to get a glass & finally got one from the shelf. I decided to get some water from the refrigerator in the adjoint room & moved on. I moved closer to the room in the dark & pulled open the door. "duddddddddddddd" (now that was the sound when a really tin of skimmed milk falls straight on your toe). Each time I look at my toe, I still feel the shearing pain that went through me when the tin fell on my toe. The cut still reminds me of that incident each time I put on my socks. If you are thinking why I am writing about this incident now... well, that might be my closest ever experience on how lack of vision can effect a person.
The actual source of inspiration for this post came not from my toe, but my recent visit to the NAB (National Association for the Blind). The visit was part of an initiative by our community to give something back to our community. For this NAB was selected as the venue & we would be painting & hardening the NAB. Though I have been thinking about it for a long time, this was my first experience for any voluntary work. So I joined in & decided to do something. I reached the venue at 9 in the morning, surprising many who have never seen me before 11. The place immediately got my admiration, it was nothing like I had expected it to be. I would say call it a beautiful campus in the middle of a busy city. The place seemed unaware about the traffic, the noise & the tension of the outside world. The building seemed to be made of stone/rock & the garden around it gave it a sense of peace & silence. There was atleast 100 of us volunteers, all ready to jump into action.
Before we start with our work, we were invited inside to have breakfast. By the time I reached towards the dining area the place was crowded & the tables were taken up by the volunteers. I and my friend decided to get the food in a place & chit-chat while leaning on a pillar. Our conversation was the usual, comparing the salaries of friends in other companies & bitch about how less they pay us, how we are the only single people left on planet earth & how beer should be taxed lesser. I was leaning against the wall when somebody collided against me from my back. I lost my balance & my initial reaction was to turn back to see the person, who almost pushed me down & to give a few rude comments. But I turned back to see a boy who was around 15, holding onto the wall for support, cane in one hand. What went through me at this moment is not something I can put down here in terms of words. Few seconds back I was happy, yet complaining about how the world is always unfair to me, then struck by anger, shock & sadness. I stood there silently while the boy apologized to me, while I care taker guided him to a room nearby. The next few minutes were followed by silence, neither of us spoke. We completed our food & got to the tasks we were assigned.
I could not get over the incident the whole day, maybe because it was the first time I was in contact with a person, who was less privileged than us. "Less privileged" is the way I would like to put it here, because for them we are the privileged class. People say, you will never understand the sweetness of victory if you haven't tasted the bitterness of failure. A rich man will never realize his worth unless, he has experienced the hardships of poverty. How much ever we try, we can never realize the privileges which we take so much for granted but is a dream for many. The boy who bumped into me & many other students of the NAB were the less privileged ones I was helping out the other way. It is true that sense of satisfaction is more when you are doing something not for ourselves but for helping others. But in my case the irony was that, they can never feel the change we had made to the world around them.
The facility had specific classes for different kinds of training. We saw a weaving mill, a mechanical workshop, light engineering & computer training centers. The library houses many books in the brail code. In a world where we take all our senses for granted it was impossible to understand to understand how one could survive if one of the senses was turned off. We are often busy complaining of all the luxuries we do not have but never truly understand the worth of what we already have. For me the visit was more than just a service to the community, but it was an opportunity for me to take a step back & thank for all what we have got. We did a good job of cleaning up the place, gardening & painting the walls. The day was concluded by a mimicry performance by one the students of the NAB. He mimicked the sounds of a rooster, a railway announcement & a rickshaw. While I sat there listening to this marvelous performance I couldn't stop wondering if the talented lad standing in front of us would ever be lucky enough to see a rooster or a rickshaw. When we hear the word "rooster", the first thing that comes to our mind is an image of a rooster, with its brightly colored feathers, its bright red crown. But what about the child who has never seen a rooster in his life & can only dream of one, but is able to recognize it just by the sound.
All of us left the places with new smiles on our face. Few of them had the satisfaction of doing something for the community. Few of the others were proud of their gardening & painting skills they displayed during the event. But that day, I left the place promising myself that the next time I look at my left toe, I will be thankful for all what I have got...
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