“The first thing is stop calling them ‘they’,” says K. C. Pandey, management head of the Blind Relief Association (BRA), while referring to the visually-impaired people.
He is right. The visually-impaired enjoy Diwali as much as any one with two pairs of eyes do, and especially if they are among friends in a hostel, as parents often get overprotective about them while they light firecrackers on their own.
There are three kinds of visually-impaired people, and for each category Diwali holds a different meaning. For those blind by birth, the festival of light is just a medley of sounds. For the partially blind it’s a blurred of vision of sparkling lights and some can even peer at the brands and check the ones they like. For those, who are on the verge of loosing sight it’s the time to pack in memories of lights and colours. At the hostel here they have an edge over the other two categories, who often “seek help” from them to identify the firecrackers and the 'danger' they pose.
At BRA, the residential senior secondary school, students of all ages, however, are having a gala time this season. The fun includes bursting firecrackers and decorating diyas in the hostel. For most of the students’ rocket bomb, sutli bomb, 'bullet' bomb, anar bomb and woollen bomb are outright favourites.
“I love rocket bomb. ‘Voh mast phootta hai’. I crack them after placing them in a bottle.” says Pawan Kumar.
“Once we had put all our rockets in an almirah and somehow they caught fire. Since the rockets didn't find space to go up, they went spiralling down. Later, we saw numerous holes in the bottom of the almirah,” recalled Mahtab, a student of Class XI, as everyone around laughed aloud. Imran, another student, said: “There is no count of naughty stuff we do during Diwali. We fire crackers inside spare desks. I love to fire crackers inside a mouse trap, hold it and run with it.”
A Class XII student Daman Preet Singh chipped in: “Though we can't see the firecrackers but burning them is fun. Our parents/guardians tell us the colours and sizes and make us touch them to feel their shape. So, we all practically know what they look like. I even know and have touched the ash of the 'snake' tablet. To be on the safe side, though, some of us fire the crackers by wrapping them in papers.”
Gaurav Mishra, who is partially visually impaired, lights the crackers by hand. “I am perceptive to light. When I can see it flickering hazily I leave the cracker to burst. When we light the bomb, its mild ‘surrr’ sound alerts us to run away.”
Another student Deshraj, who is slowly losing sight, said earlier he loved to take risk with fire crackers and is particularly fond of anars. “I can hazily see a shadow of the anar flashing as it flowers up.”
Students unanimously agree that they love to celebrate Diwali with their friends rather than at home. “Parents are too protective at home. We have less fun there”, many of them said in unison.
For some children in the primary section here, Diwali is also an occasion for “eating unlimited amount of sweets”.
“I eat rasgullahs and balooshahi endlessly and love lighting up the bullet and sutli bombs,” said Aditya from Haryana, a Class V student.
His views were echoed by Tushar, his class mate who loves to fire crackers “from the gun for safety reasons.” Nihal, who is slowly losing vision, said he loved Diwali more when his sight was better. But, he insisted that with friends around, he was slowly coming to accept his disability. “This year, I will also enjoy the way I used to,” he declared.
The visually-impaired also often commit dangerous mistakes while lighting firecrackers. Some of the boys narrated how they took a slow burning bomb to be a defused one and had to run when it exploded. Some narrated how they threw a burning firecracker towards a friend by mistake and how often the sutli bombs simply burst under their feet.
Damanpreet concluded by asking: “Even sighted people face this scenario, right?”
