I lay frightfully awake past midnight, gripped by a sudden fear of the possibility of going blind. What had brought on this fear? I don’t know. Maybe an imagination on overdrive, or the awareness of growing age and deteriorating health. The fear was very real and not nice. It took me to the edge of darkness. I could not see myself coping with blindness. So how did those who had actually lost their sight manage? I remembered seeing blind men with sticks boarding Mumbai local trains. I thought of Helen Keller. Yet, the suffocating fear took time to recede.

Two days later I came across Kanchan’s story.

Blind at Eight

Kanchan woke up and rubbed her eyes. She could hear familiar morning sounds, but could see nothing. As she turned her head around, she saw only darkness. She felt her father’s arms around her as he asked, “Did you dream?” That’s when she screamed out in horror, at the realization that she could not see. “I felt the world closing up around me, as if someone had cut the breath of life,” says Kanchan. Initially, her parents could not believe what had happened to their eight-year-old. They took her to specialists in Chennai, who confirmed the diagnosis that Kanchan had a detached retina; the light-sensitive layer of tissue at the back of the eyeball that sent image signals to the brain had failed. She had become permanently blind.

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