Tag Archives: blind

My talk at TEDX Youth Chennai

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Ahhhhhh I know it has been a long time when I gave this talk & haven’t share any details of it here. I spoke at TEDX youth Chennai on November 19th 2010 on the occasion of world youth day where I share the story & journey of my life.

I haven’t share this talk here because I felt little embarrassed because what I decided to talk did not actually materialize, but I think it was well received by the students who came for the event. Finally I decided to share this talk here & see what will be the feedback.

Raghavendra Sathish Peri at TEDxYouth @Chennai – Talk on “Life – living and learning” from karthick on Vimeo.

Learning Accepting & Moving

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Relearning is one of the toughest things which I find to adapt because for years together we follow a path, idea & a process in our life. If suddenly we are forced to change that process it will be a difficult time for any one & currently I am in that phase of life where I am juggling with the old & the new. Some of my friends even made statements like it will be easy for you to adapt because you already know that some day you will face this day, that is true but did I know that it will be today or it will be tomorrow. I don’t expect to get up in the morning & find my self totally blinded & no one does. Yes I need to accept the truth & move on, but before it let me put this statement there is a war going on, Country A & B are well prepared for the war but still when the war hits both countries they suffer in spite of their well done preparations. Life is also the same I am prepared for the worse but when my deterioration hit me it hit me, it doesn’t matter if I know that I will be blind or not, the only thing matters to me is how will I have to move on from now. Do I know that I will arrive at this kind of situation in life, the truth is no. I never thought I will have to face these day’s of stress & confusion. I was worried, scared, stressed with wild thoughts, confused, angry with myself parents & god etc & yet I have the hope I will be able to manage it, but how was the question.

Yes I was slowly pulled into depression, not fully but partially. My friends & colleague’s observed that my usual cheerful mood & my smile were missing for a long time. One fine day one of my cab mate said “Raghava if you don’t mine shall I say something? I said yes & she responded like this, I travelled in the same cab with you couple of times & what I observed that your usual cheerful smile is missing & you look like a cold hearted person without it. I was stuck & immediately understood that unconsciously I my worry on the deterioration is pulling me into depression. I wanted to get rid of this situation & I understood this is happening because I wanted to experience my dreams & if I lose my vision I will be forced to give up on couple of them. I always wanted to go on a travel, see the world, and understand the history, culture & customs etc but now I might not be able to see the world was my worry.

They were tough times & if any thing helped me to come out of it is hope, faith & constant observations of my self. I wanted to get out of it & until I made the effort everything looks gloomy, so I decided to go on trekking, spend a lot of time with friends, went out for movies, parties & I even got close to a cousin brother whom I never got in touch during my stay in Bangalore. It made all the difference in the world being with people & I understood how much these relationships matter. I don’t say don’t get depressed or worry please go a head experience the feeling during the tough times of life & try to learn from those experiences, because nothing goes wrong without our notice & if we do a small change doing some analysis we can get things right before it is too late. In my case the mistake is to spend very little time with friends & time for myself. Ran behind my goals & ambitions like a mad man where I hurt my health & mental ability.

A Thank You note to My Eye Sight

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Today just when I was going through couple of my blog posts I just got stick to this post for a while “ Are you Thankful for What You Have” which I wrote during last year. For a minute I was lost in thoughts and was unable to concentrate on anything because for a long time I knew one or the other day I need to face the truth that I might be totally blind, I knew this 10yrs back when doctor told me that it might take 1yr or it might take 10yrs for the vision to deteriorate.

Today I am stuck with the reality of life, I am losing my vision and finally I realized it. slow deterioration is very tough to spot and it took a long time for me to understand that I am not able to see things which i saw earlier and I got really worried, angry, frustrated with the thought of losing my vision totally. I stopped realizing how much my vision has helped me all these 10yrs to do various things which are played an important role for my success today. Even though it was little it helped me to see the world from a closer perspective which enabled me to acquire a lot of courage and belief in my self. It changed me from what I am to what I became and I am sure without my Eye Sight I would have not made all this forward.

I decided not to concentrate on what I am losing, instead I want to enjoy the every moment of my vision to the fullest. I want to thanks my eye’s for showing me the “Good, Bad & Ugly” of this universe. I just wished if I got more time to spend time enjoying the glory of able to see the world and I feel my eye’s saying me we can still show you the world from a different perspective and don’t forget only you can see the unseen because you are going to change and going to be different from now on. A better person than before, a person who sees and does things differently. Not many are blessed with this rare opportunity of living life differently, so thank us for what ever we have shown you and what ever we taught you.

It is tough to accept, but not impossible so move on and go on your journey of life. You still got a blur vision so use it also to the fullest and see what you can learn are the words that I heard in my dream. With this I wanted to thank my Eye Sight for all that it has done till date and move on with my life.

How does it feel to be blind

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Last 10yrs of my journey into the world of visual impairment I was asked the same question by different friends and people whom I met along the way “How does it feel to be blind” every time my answer would be you must ask a Blind person, not me.

I never considered my self being blind and still today I forget that I cannot see properly. Since I spent most of my teenage with a lot of low vision, no one even knew that I got visual impairment and I managed it for a while. Along with the time my vision started deteriorating and after I wrote the post “Can’t you see? Are you blind?” I started thinking “How does it feel to be blind” and came up with only this

Close your eyes for couple of minutes, and what if I say this is it, this is how the world will look for you from now on?

Do this and put your thoughts in the comments section…Would like to hear “How did you all felt being temporarily blind”

Can’t you see? Are you blind?

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My daily routine is to get up at 6:30 AM go for a run and then fetch breakfast at Manas Tiffin center which is walkable distance to my house and the park. Today also I went to the tiffin center and entered the place which is not much crowded at 07:30 and started ordering the breakfast at the counter. Suddenly I hear a women’s voice excuse me “can’t you see? Are you blind?”, first I was confused and then I understood she was referring to me. Her voice is cold with anger and I did not understand why she is furious and I realized that when I entered the tiffin center I might have accidently brushed her with my hand as she is very near to the place where I came from. I showed my cane and I think she understood that I am really blind, she just told sorry and went off.

When she asked can’t you see? Are you blind? Unknowingly tears rolled in my eye’s and then my mind told I am not suppose to cry and suddenly tears stopped. I took my parcel and while I was leaving she came again and said that she is facing to the other side and talking to her friend so she did not realize that I cannot see. Then I understood that it was not my hand, leg or cane which touched her, it was my over sized fat jacket which might have brushed. Because if I am aware that I touched someone while I am moving in public I always make sure that I apologize, but here I did not even feel it to my senses.

How did I feel when she asked that question so rudely?
First I had an uneasy feeling about something, as if my heart is twisted and then a surge of anger burst into my blood. In the first instance my unconscious mind told me to say “fuck you can’t you see that I really cannot see” and my consciousness told not to talk anything. As soon as I came back home I gave a call to my sister and she cheered me up saying that today I enlightened a person with a lot of awareness on disability which even cheered me up. That’s true, controlling a minute of anger has made my day more cheerful.

PS…These kind of experiences has happened a lot of times while I was studying in college, but in Bangalore along with my cane I never was in some kind of situation like this, so got hot headed quickly.