The Making of a Myth

You may term it a hare-brained idea for a visually impaired person to be inspired by Denis Lilly. That he wants to bowl as fast as the legendry Australian pace bowler & send batsman to hospital. Equally chimerical you may find a legally blind person to say that he goes to the cinema every week, if possible Friday evening itself to see the latest released film.

George Abraham, however, defies all familiar notions. A legally blind and a fast bowler, he did send batsman limping & later organised Cricket World Cup for Blind. Like a professional critic, he analyses a movie thread-bare. His enormous interest for cinema can leave you wondering when he says that his enjoyment level of watching is a movie is nowhere lesser than a person with normal vision.

To say that he, who lost his optic nerves and retina at the age of ten months to meningitis, defied all odds is too little a phrase. He actually never believed in odds. He lives as natural a life as anybody does. After schooling at various top schools, he completed Mathematics Honors & Post Graduation in Operation Research from St Stephens College.

An Ashoka Fellow, he loves detective novels, especially of Robert Ludlum & John Grisham and has immense interest in music-Beatles, Bob Dylon, Gazals, Mehandi Hasan, Ghulam Ali, Kishore Kumar amongst others.

In an extremely candid interview, he spoke out of his heart to Ashutosh Bhardwaj. Indeed, this reporter was repeatedly mesmerized at him-his coherency, argumentativeness, amiability & ambitions. Though he denies mythical proportion being attached to persons of extraordinary abilities, yet, the only epithet this reporter could think of him is- Mythical.

Presently he is CEO of Score Foundation, a Delhi based NGO. He also runs Eyeway-a one stop point for all the information related to the visually impaired. He is also Chairman of ACBI( Association of Cricket for Blind in India).

He loves oratory & dreams of anchoring a TV program.

Your site proposes- Disability is God given but a handicapped is man made. How can a visually impaired be prevented from becoming a handicapped?

Not being able to see is outside your control. It could be due to an accident, certain illness or genetic disorders. However, if parents do not send such child to school and he remains uneducated, that is a man made situation. A person, during his growth as a human being goes to schools & colleges & opts for a professional career.

However, parents of a disabled person ignore basic growth landmarks of that kid. He is not sent to a regular school, he is kept aside & as a result his whole growth process is slowed down. Finally instead of a professional career, he is forced to do some kind of vocational training programs like cane chair making and candle making, which have limited commercial options today.
Not given the growth opportunity & then suddenly thrown out in this competitive world, he doesn't stand a chance.

You organize a conference for visually disabled & all the presentations are given in Power Point, which means you are excluding him as he can't see those presentations. But if you provide him necessary material, he would be a part of the proceedings.

He is handicapped because of exclusion & lack of accessible material, which is a human made condition. You create a building with narrow doors & a person on wheel chair can't get into the room.

It is probably the persons who construct these buildings or organised a conference have never experienced disability. They have their own perspective.

You are right. Each person, including a visually impaired has his own perspective. We, human beings tend to be exclusive, do not think about others. People are not aware, they may not be insensitive, but they are not sensitized to the needs of others. That's why one talks of universal design-be it a product, process or space-which suits all.

I would say not thinking about the disabled is another kind of fundamentalism. It may not be like religious fundamentalism, but it operates to offend interests of disabled.

Well, I don't say so. It's not fundamentalism. People do not do it deliberately. People are either unaware of it or they do not attach too much importance to it, never realizing that a disabled is also a human being, he can perform like anybody else if given opportunities & an enabling environment.

Ved Mehta, a visually impaired writer had some tremendous abilities. He could write about "yellow mustard flowers", "scarlet flame of forests". For me, it's magical. Mythical. Is it normal with each visually impaired or Mehta has some inherent abilities?

Well, visually impaired people are people as anybody else. There are some outstanding people; there are some not so outstanding people. Being visually impaired doesn't straightaway follow that he has an outstanding memory or mythical powers. It's quite possible that some people have highly evolved senses.

Ved Mehta had some vision when he was a kid. He lost his eyes when he was five-six year old. He had some vision memory, which he would have retained. He would have been reading & hearing other people's work. It need not have been an extra sensory perception that he displays in his descriptions. It's quite possible that he went with his wife somewhere, who described it to him & he used it later.
It's possible today my wife appreciates a red rose before me & tomorrow I may write an article about the beauty of red rose.

People belonging to non-blind world find it extraordinary, but for me it's absolutely natural.

It is said that if God snatches away one ability, it gives you another in abundance to compensate for the other. Is it the case with persons like Mehta or Hindi poet Surdas-who despite being visionless wrote extraordinary poems full of colorful imagery?

It's true, but it's not something mythical, it's a reality. When you can't see, you tend to rely on other senses. A person with proper vision does not use his hearing or smelling powers very much, whereas survival of a visually impaired depends on what he hears or feels. Therefore, he has to develop those skills.

I had a tremendous memory for telephone numbers till I got this software for reading out the numbers. Since then, I started using my phone book & stopped remembering phone numbers.

How do you estimate present number of visually impaired in India?

The numbers are debated. According to an estimate, 14 million are totally blind, another 28 million have low vision.

What is the criterion for low vision?

Anybody who has less than 6/18 has low vision. Legally blind people are those who have less than 6/60. What a normal eye sees at sixty meters, these people will see at six meters. Normal vision is 6/6.

It means a legally blind person also has some vision.

Right. Even a legally blind may have some vision, he may see some shadows. It's only for an absolute blind that vision doesn't exist at all. For him, there is no shadow or even any black figure. Seeing black is also seeing something. We wrongly say that at eyes closed, we see nothing. With closed eyes we see black. A totally blind, whereas, doesn't see anything at all.
A 6/60 person would have some amount of vision, but when it comes to cross a road or read a book, it becomes difficult for him.

It becomes impossible then.

I wouldn't say impossible. Everything is possible. Even a totally blind person crosses a road. What is normal to me may not be normal to you.

We were talking about status of visually impaired in India. How do you find it?

Eighty percent of the blindness in India is due to cataract, an age related phenomenon. These can be treated, which still leaves other blinds at 3-4 million & that's a large number.

There is a terrible lack of resources for treatment of blind people in India, especially in remote areas. Resources tend to be concentrated in urban centers. To get same facilities, a person from Jharkhand has to travel miles, whereas someone from Tamilnadu need not have to.

India also has limited resources for treatment & rehabilitation of these people. There is no reason why totally blind people shouldn't go to mainstream schooling. With the help of technology, blind people can study in regular schools. There is no need for separate blind schools.

Special schools are surely required for multiple disabled or severely disabled or mentally challenged but not for merely visually impaired. With blind children in schools, other children also become sensitive. They learn to cope with them.

It then becomes a richer & inclusive learning.

Absolutely. It helps impaired person dream of mainstream. Other people learn to give you space & accommodate you. I did combined study with my friends. I would understand concepts quicker & I would be explaining them.

I once visited a school for visually impaired at Kingsway Camp Delhi. Students told me about prevalent physical abuse not just by teachers but by seniors themselves.

Visually impaired are as vulnerable as anybody else. They are as human as anybody else. Their instincts & urges are normal like anybody. Homosexuality is human. Blind have no outlets to express their feeling & you tend to notice it there more.

If they were in a normal school, probably such incidents may not have happened to this extent.

Yeah, then they would have the opportunity to interact with girls & other students & there would be outlets to express their feelings.

With Mathematics honors, how did you come to this sector?

I worked with advertising world till 1989. I visited a blind school for the first time in 1989. I was quite shocked at the quality of education. I found people with better eyesight than me languishing. I felt of being lucky that my parents provided me good education.

I decided to work for them. Later I saw some blind boys playing cricket in Dehradun. Eventually cricket for blinds was the first project I took up. I organised a national tournament, which became an annual feature. I was elected the Chairperson of World
Blind Cricket Council. India hosted Blind World Cups in 1998 & 2002 & I was instrumental in organizing the event.

Cricket! You have interest in cricket?

Enormous. I dreamt of being Dennis Lilly. My sole aim then was to bowl as fast as I could. I could only see the shadows of batsman at other end. My aim was either to send him to hospital or pavilion. Of course, I was inspired by Jeff Thompson & Denis Lilly, who sent many English batsmen to hospitals.

Did you actually pack someone to hospital?

Not to hospital, but I did send people limping.

We human beings are by nature interdependent. We need help of others to survive. What is the nature of help a visually disabled require?

If this world is designed with fairness in terms of architecture & information flow then a blind person is as independent or dependent as anybody else. But because of the limiting factors & lack of facilities, he becomes more dependent. For instance, earlier it was difficult for a blind to get a ticket at reservation counter or perform banking operations. Today with access to computer, he can do many things.

Dependence also depends on socio-cultural environment. A healthy, able bodied person from a remote town would found himself totally dependent on others once he enters Delhi. Lots of independence comes from training & training. It is not disability per se which actually creates dependency. It is lack of exposure & facility. Since disabled are usually neglected & rarely given exposure, they appear more dependent.

You have succeeded immensely in public life. I am sure there have been some moments of depression in your life.

Certainly I have had depressing moments, but I have had the mind set to carry on, leaving such moments behind.

What kept you moving forward?

My dreams & ambition, which keep me going. As a child, I had three broad desires-first, I wanted to be a fast bowler like Denis Lilly. Second, I wanted to be a singer like Kishore Kumar. Third, I wanted to be an orator & communicator like Amitabh Bachhan. Of course, I have not followed their foot steps in traditional sense of the word, but I have followed the three lines in the sense that I have been involved with promoting cricket & music & musicians with blinds. I have been promoting communication through Eyeway.

What are your pleasant memories? What do you do in spare time?

Organizing the First Blind World Cup was a great feeling. The entire thing was planned, conceived & directed by me.

I regularly go with my family to watch movies. We see a movie every week, if possible, Friday evening itself. Last Friday we saw Saawariya.

How did you find Saawariya?

I wouldn't rate it a great film. But it wasn't a bad film either. Probably, the hero of the film was the director himself-Sanjay Lila Bhansali. He was so caught up with the process & technology that he neglected the story. A good film is where a story is told well.

How do you enjoy a movie, which is a visual phenomenon? Do you think your level of enjoyment is lesser compared with a person of vision?

The enjoyment level is probably the same. The antennas of receiving the content & flavour of a movie are different. I get greater enjoyment through my ears. The enjoyment of my wife and kids and many others is more visual.
Of course, I can't enjoy silent movies or movies with greater camera work and fewer dialogues.

How do you enjoy cricket?

Lot through audio. But sometimes through actual watching also. When there is something interesting, I get very close to TV.

Thanks a lot Mr Abraham. It was a wonderful talking to you. I believe it will go down in my journalistic career as one of the most memorable interviews I ever had. Thank you so much once again.

Ashutosh Bhardwaj
Nov 2007
New Delhi