Coimbatore:

S Sabari Venkat is just like any other smart 10 year-old-kid with a sweet smile and a sharp mind ready with an answer to almost every question thrown at him. But sit with him for two minutes and the truth will hit us like a sharp slap across our face. This fifth standard student who is also one of the class toppers is flashing the smile at us from his inner world which is constantly black, devoid of colours and any optical sense of recognition. Sabari was born blind in both eyes and though his retina’s react to light flashed at his left retina, it does not reach him since he is suffering from more than 90%  blindness in his left eye and total blindness in his right eye. Sabari had accompanied other differently-abled children to an event held at a private hotel here in the city.

“It was very good experience all of them said good things to me,” says Sabari at his residence near Perianacikenpalayam.

Later in the day as we entered his modest rented house comprising of two rooms and a kitchen adjacent to a private marriage hall in the locality, Sabari was tinkering with the volume switch of the television set. He constantly sits in front of the television and ‘listens’ to the programs aired on various channels, especially those which telecast cartoons. With great concentration and excitement he sits in front of it and draw faces and shapes to the conversations and sounds from the TV speakers in his mind

“He sits in front of the television and follows the conversations very keenly. He stays completely glued to it often,” says K Sreenivas, Sabari’s father.

Sabari is presently a student of Ramakrishna Mission Vidyalaya Swami Shivananda Higher Secondary School near Perianaickenpalayam along with normal children. He still manages to be one of the top scorers in the class often in the second or third position. The school authorities also support him in his academics and a teacher from the institution helps as his scribe during examination. Sabari is also a good orator and has won several competitions for chanting shlokas from Bhagavad Gita. He also regularly dresses up as Swami Vivekananda and is greatly inspired by his teachings narrated to him by his father K Sreenivas and his teachers.

“Swami Vivekananda lived for just 39 years but managed to achieve great things within that short span. Not everyone is able to do so in life,” says Sabari.

K Sreenivas, an agrarian and his wife S Neelaveni waited long for the birth of their first child and was initially shattered when they were told that Sabari will not be able to see them or anything else around him after his birth.

The couple was earlier residing near Kozhinjampara near Pollachi along the Kerala-Tamil Nadu border but they decided to sell of their agriculture land and relocate to Coimbatore city to ensure that Sabari is not left behind either in his education or medical treatment under any circumstances. The couple had tried to bring light to at least one of his eyes and tried to get his left eye treated. Though doctors diagnosed him with cataracts and an ensuing complication called Synechia which could not be completely cured so far.

“We used to live in a semi-rural area and in those places if there is a handicapped kid in the family people tend to talk about it constantly. Some do it out of sympathy, some because of superstition but we made a decision that our son need not grow up listening to it and so we came to Coimbatore,” Sreenivas adds.

source: http://www.TheHindu.com / Home> City> Coimbatore / TNN / September 16th, 2012