THE BLIND MAN

He was walking ahead of me.. and I was rushing in my usual speed in the direction that usually led me home. It was a particularly busy crossing on a sufficiently hot morning in October...and it was not long before I overtook him- I walk fast- but somehow, I kept losing my pace. Déjà vu? I stopped long enough to afford a look back. He was blind.. he was blind??!!

I vividly remember staring at him.. Did he know where he was? Or even, what gave him the (over)confidence and exaggerated hope that he could be on a crowded street, surrounded by people of dubious propensities controlling the steer wheels they were at, wanting to own a share of the road to get to the places they wanted to go to any which way…overtaking from the left, over-speeding, carelessly driving themselves off the road? What really gave him the assurance to venture out as such, unaccompanied? I thought it was particularly overoptimistic(!!) on his part to choose a time and space that were clearly not suited to asserting his independence or whatever.

But, could the irony have been any starker? I saw him feel the road - choc a bloc with traffic zooming all around oneself- with his white stick and take small, concerted steps in the direction he purportedly wished to go. Blindness…ohh. I could read his face.. his doubts.. his questions.. I could read them all. I could hardly move an inch. I stood right there, planted in the soil, paralyzed, still staring , Maybe I had stopped just to help him if he needed it anytime soon. But ah, there was something else to it all. I usually find myself in a similar catatonic trance when something, anything around me belongs so much to me that the distinction between our separateness in time, space, dimensions or even physical manifestation disappears. Or if something holds a mirror to me that reflects back an image so stark and honest in its manifestation that I freeze for a minute to soak it in. I can’t but help feel thankful to the instant and the mechanism that fills the thought in me. A blind man on a street is no supernatural phenomenon. It may come about fairly easily. But things like these do not escape me pretty easily. For a great while I could not escape the irony of it all too. This man lacks eyesight. This man…lacks…eyesight. I rolled over the thought in my brain as if schizophrenic.. He lacks eyesight... But is he really different from the rest of us? Of course, blindness is an unfortunate physical deficit. It shears off the color in your life. Color that may or may not lend beauty and advantage. But it certainly makes the living experience more complete. Returning back to the experience, I suddenly looked out for more blind men around. There were, of course, scores of pairs of eyes looking around in the light that was illuminating half the world but not his. But indeed some lack eyesight and some vision! In both the cases the groping and the sense of futility and helplessness are the same, only qualitatively different in character. Eyesight and vision must make the world a brighter place. Let us all stop for a minute to examine where our lives are headed. Let us examine our ‘vision’ once again. Let us stop ‘groping’ in the dark. Let us not be ‘blind’, even if restoring ‘vision’ must need assistance. The ‘power’ here to streamline our life with a unique mission- a ‘vision’ to self-actualize, to be on our own despite our ‘blindness’ of physical or any other manifestation, to cut off from unnecessary herd activity, to differentiate ourselves in our own capacity and to lend individual meaning and purpose to the undefined construct that life is..
.. I remember looking at him again and moving on.. happy that maybe I shouldn’t judge him and take layers off him in the way I had been doing. His life maybe is more complete than mine or what I think his is. I, for one, have a lot of dreams and a vision too that needs sharpening over time…(but I lack courage).. This man lend that to me in some measure! I reckon, one should not just be satisfied with an eyesight. A Blindman with a vision may see a lot more.

As John Milton also said, On His Blindness

WHEN I consider how my light is spent
Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide
Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest He returning chide,—
Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?
I fondly ask:—But Patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies: God doth not need
Either man's work, or His own gifts, who best
Bear His mild yoke, they serve Him best. 0

.....They also serve who only stand and wait.