That is what blind people are supposed to do. They can’t see, so they feel things with their hands or with sticks and get around.
Well, I am a “sighted’ person as the blind children refer to people who use their eyes. Yet, I see very little.
I was myopic as a child but the doctors didn’t see fit to give me glasses till I was in the 4th-5th grade. And I always have had a slight hearing loss.
I can’t remember any game I was good at. Always a little plump, a little myopic and a little hard of hearing, with a cold affecting my sense of smell for stretches of time, I lost hopping and catching, running and catching, hide and seek, climbing, carroms, LTP.. what have you.
I loved reading and my dad used to throw me out of the house to play, every evening. And switch of the lights at 8.30 pm to force me to sleep.
I could beat adults at scrabble and chess, but I was always thrown out of rooms in which elders were talking. A kid ought to be outside playing.
An interesting thing was that all play mates were always kind to me. Once they knew that I could never win, they always invented ways by which I could play too. The best climbers would give me a hand. I remember being terrified of heights. My friend Seetha bent over so I could step on her back and climb on to the terrace. I was paired with strong players in carroms and given second chances. Puttakka used to take over from me and play proxy to catch all the people that I could not finish catching in hopping and catching.
The great thing for me was that I was always included, loved and helped. I have noticed that for some reason, people love to help, defend and protect me from a few other people who actually delight in attack. I learnt very early in life that more people are good and kind and helpful and fewer people are hurtful.
In a sense, I am not a damsel in distress, I am a child in distress. and that probably appeals to men, women and children alike. I seem to be fundamentally incapable or disinclined to defence or offence myself, by nature.
This must contradict descriptions of me as a 5 foot powerhouse, that you will certainly hear from some people.
I am not weak. I am powerful, but in a sense I am blind. I cannot see the intents and motives of people. People in books and television serials are simple and clearly explained to the audience. But real people are complex and not explained.
I used to accept people’s first person account of themselves, their explanation of themselves. But that does not work. People may lie, either to look good or because they are deluded. My nature of taking people at face value is actually mis-leading. People over compensate in their self-presentations for their weaknesses and bad intentions. If you take people at face value, you, like me, are gullible. You can be spun a pretty story.
For the past few years, I have been turning to people more intelligent than me in these matters – the sighted people – for navigation. I describe the situation as well as I can and I ask, “what is this person really saying? what is his/her true nature? what is their real intent? how should i react?” These ‘navigators’ have explained things and suggested courses of action that work.
These “sighted navigators” do not accept anything at face value. They are extremely observant and rely on their own analysis of people. They look askance. They gather data about people from others and anlayse it.
I am an extremely analytical person, and insightful too. And yet I am blind. How do I explain this?
I have felt my way through life. I look at the morning sun and I feel wonderful. I do not notice, its brightness or colour or angle in the horizon. I can only describe the world in terms of how the world makes me feel. Something or someone is exciting or cold or warm or boring or wonderful. There are some feelings that I cannot tolerate at all and I need to get away immediately. There are some feelings I love and I like to repeat.
I like books because they explain the world and my feelings to me. Like a child, I need an explanation about the universe, about people and about myself. I have a great ability to understand the written and the spoken word with all its nuances. And a great ability to write and to speak. But all I know from first hand experience is my feelings. And that is all that I can express, other than what I have learned in books and from others.
Friday June 29, 2007 – 09:30am
