Vision

 One of the batches whom I taught Spanish had seven students who were visually impaired. That batch truly helped me a lot in multiple ways. This was circa 2015. The internet hence was not actually bursting then with oral/aural apps for the visually impaired. 

The only access they had to the language was via my voice. Yet their learning of the language and their preparedness for the course final exam, both were way too far better than the so-called 'norm'al students with their uppity attitude. One of the visually impaired student literally remembered the entire book, page by page, line by line just by listening to me attentively. Indeed i learnt a lot from him!

Once while I was teaching them the colours through the passport as the text input, one of the girls asked me if eyes at all have colours. I got goosebumps listening to that question, and I still do. Such sensitisation to, and unique answers to, the plight of the visually impaired actually began with the vision the Braille script got in to their lives.

Before this 'vision'ary gift entered their lives, the blind as they would be crudely called (one of my students told me that they would be asked such crude questions as, while eating,  how they would find their mouth to put food in to it!!!), led very difficult lives. Often considered a curse even by their near and dear ones, their lives were burdensome.

Before the advent of the apps, it was the Braille script that made their lives worthy. Louis Braille, who invented it, knew the plight of the tribe himself, blinded as he was by a freak accident in his early teens. His re-search of the script, named after him, literally brought light in to their lives.

More than the white cane associated with the visually impaired as a symbol of concern, it was the genuinely 'vision'ary Braille script that led to the enabling of this group of the differently abled. Hence the celebration of the Braille day every January 4, his birth anniversary, because the touch-n-feel script he initiated truly led very many from darkness to light. Indeed he gave many, both the visually impaired and the so-called 'norm'al, the real 'vision'!

Pratima@ What matters more is the vision, not mere sight!