“Ye Bandar adrak ka swaad chakh chuka hai”,
she quipped. “Ab ise aur badi adrak chahiye.”
Made sense – for a visually impaired
entrepreneur who, instead of moping about her fate made it her job to motivate
“healthy” individuals – though she soon dispelled the myth about this purported
“health” too. As she said, “Those of us who look “healthy” on the surface are
the ones who need the most help – they have been on their own the longest”.
My next canned question fit in nicely here,
so I asked, “It is so easier to accept the pity you are offered than to soldier
on at an equal footing. What makes you choose the tougher route, and where do
you get the energy to do it?” While I got a decent answer to the first half of
this question, the second half remained unanswered – probably because she, like
the rest of us, has no idea as to what keeps her ticking, “I see life as a choice
between being a giver and a taker, and I choose to be a giver”, she said.
“In the early “struggle” days, how did you handle naysayers, and
more importantly, your own self doubt?” I asked. She
replied, “In my early struggle days, I was a little girl and I used to be
very disturbed by the attitude of people around me. I used to get left out of
almost everything and used to cry nonstop. My mother and my father were my
counselors and they always helped me to look at all that I had and others did
not have. They helped me to recognize my strengths and made me happy with that.
As for naysayers, an
example here: When visitors came home my mother made sure I served them water,
made tea for them and served them. This would be done amidst horrified
shrieks of, “No, No don’t bother Mrs. Singh, we will help ourselves! Don’t get
the poor girl to do all this! “ And then when my mother would happily smile and
encourage me to continue my duty with a smile; and all the work was done,
all would be OK! The visitors would settle down to the normal chit chatting and
go away crestfallen as they realized that their pity was not at all required or
welcome! And all ended well, slowly the condoling about the loss of
my eyesight came to an end!
My next question was,
“Who has been the one significant influence on your life and how?
She replied, “My parents, My Mami (my mother’s brother’s wife), Helen
Keller, and many others. How is a difficult one to answer in
just a few words. They inspired, and motivated me and still do.”
Here, I
decided – enough personal stuff let’s get general here. I asked, “Do you think
the silver line philosophy applies to today’s dirty political world too?”
Without batting ane eyelid, she countered “There
is nothing dirty or clean. It is how you choose to look at it. There is
always a Silver Lining to everything; it is you who has to develop the
sensibility to look for it. There are always 2 sides to everything.”
Fair enough – it was a valid point of view, and I understood
that I wouldn’t get far talking about global stuff here. Safety lay in sticking to
personal stuff. So, I changed pace again, and asked, “Do you not often
encounter cynicism (external as well as internal) and if yes, how do you cope
with it?” She replied, “I just be myself, everyone is welcome to his/her
prospective. Also, I try not to judge, everyone is entitled to be as they
are. Same goes for me too.”
