Sumitra

When Pari first came home I'd met all of two people in my life - my father and the servant maid who came in occasionally.

Meeting Pari that day was a happy event for me. I sometimes wonder if I liked Pari because there was no other reference for me. I wondered if I liked her voice because there weren't too many other voices I heard. But to be honest I think I'd have liked her if she had been the last person I ever met. Pari is like me or rather I hope I am like her. She is strong and free and completely independent. She is no less a person than anyone I've met since. Pari taught me many things and she taught me how to see.

Have you ever wondered how a person who has never known light or colour can imagine a sunset? Pari taught me how to. Pari wasn't born blind but she didn't tell me how she lost her sight. She told me once though that not being able to see often meant a little less to worry about. She never hesitated to talk about our disabilities and that invariably helped me feel better and realize a few things.

She also helped me realize that my imagination is unbridled by sight. I'm not limited to what I have to see. My horizons have been deeper and my skies wider. Like a child seeing night-time monsters in the darkness, I see more than there is to see. What a wonderful life. I don't know Blue from Green and Black from White, but anytime I want I can see a beautiful earth from the skies or a brilliant night sky from earth's safety. It has never rained on my parade because I have sunshine when I want it.

Pari and I spoke most of the time. She did teach me the alphabet and numbers and all the simple things. She also taught me a few useful lessons about myself. She helped me feel good about myself and helped me reach out beyond where I was. Somehow Pari never told me something I couldn't understand. I think now that she made things simple for me. Pari helped me see so much I began to realize the walls my father was erecting around us, the dark protective walls he threw around himself and me in his reclusion.

Five years after I first met Pari she helped me find a good school to attend. It was a school for the blind but there were people there and I'd imagined enough I wanted to see more. I asked my dad and he relented with surprising ease. I guess he didn't want his desire for privacy take anything away from my growing mind.

I am blind but claustrophobic in my imagination. I hate little nooks. I love those rolling meadows and wide fields of corn. I love the sunlight dazzling upon a lake and a swan soaring away. I love the ripples on the lake's surface and I love Wordsworth's yellow daffodils on its shore. So what if yellow is green to me, it's a beautiful world I have in my mind.