Sitara Khanna, a twenty eight year old librarian, is an acid attack survivor. With a half burnt face but a heart full of determination and calibers to survive in the world, she missed a certain element in her life. Love.
Yash Chaudhary, a twenty ni...
Ops! Esta imagem não segue as nossas directrizes de conteúdo. Para continuares a publicar, por favor, remova-a ou carrega uma imagem diferente.
Letting my fingers brush through the walls of the room, I slowly walked towards the bathroom. I sighed happily when I managed to find the door knob.
Turning the door open, I walked into the bathroom and shut the door behind me. Feeling for the basin, I picked up my toothbrush only to flinch at the construction noise and dropping it down.
Welp! What normal people out there would do is bend down and retract the toothbrush. But I, was far from being normal.
Bending down, I let my fingers feel for the toothbrush. The cold ceramic tiles of the bathroom was all I could feel.
I could always call for my mother to come in and help her blind son to pick the toothbrush. But I was tired of bothering her every now and then.
In their early fifties, what parents expect their only child to do is aid them- financially, emotionally and physically. They do not expect their almost thirty year son to depart on a mission in late September and become blind by the end of the mission.
Last September, I was on a mission with six of my teammates in a secluded part of Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (POK). The safety drills suggest for us to wear our safety glasses along with bullet proof combat uniforms and carry all the necessary safety precautions with us. What they don't think about while designing these equipments are the unavailablity of enough space to carry the huge bag of equipments. We had to pass through a narrow lane that barely fit human beings within a few seconds while we dodge bullets. The narrow lane ended on a bunker that had already been bombed by the terrorists. As soon as I kept my leg on the bunker, it blasted, throwing me off to the other side. A huge piece of metal pierced my left eye ball, destructing my eyebrows and my eyebags too. By the time I recieved medical help, both of my eyes were infected and destroyed. I was in coma for two months and in rehabilitation for one.
Initially, I tried learning the new ways of living. Using a cane, reading a few letters of Braille, detecting things by my finger and using my senses. I even learnt how to make an omlet! But the constant failures made me cranky and rude.
"Maa!" I called out for my mother as I sit on the cold floor. A series of hurried food steps resonated in the silent house.
"Are you okay, Yash?" She asked me. I could feel her body radiating warmth as she kneeled beside me.
"I dropped my toothbrush somewhere. Can you help me find it?" I asked her, resigned.
"Oh baby! You dropped it into the toilet pot." She informed me. No wonder I was not being able to find it.
"I have a new toothbrush in my cupboard. Wait for me." I heard her descending footsteps. Letting my hands float in the air in the search of the nearest wall, I stood up.
This was frustrating. Annoying. Pitiful. Feeling of being blind is worse than I thought. Especially for a man who had been blind only for a few months.
