Case Study - 1 Recently, we came across a heart-wrenching incident involving one of our visually impaired community members, who also happened to be a beggar on the local train. He lived alone after being cast out by his own brothers, denying him his rightful inheritance. Our Pastor Teklal was mentoring him. Through pastor he knew about the Lord and was wholly devoted towards Jesus. Pastor shared the devastating news of his passing. During that time pastor Teklal (who himself is blind) came for a week seminar at Siliguri and pastor was trying to inquire about him through telephone calling. But the mobile was switched off. For four days, nobody checked on him. Eventually, the police discovered his decomposed body in his humble bamboo dwelling. This tragic story sheds light on the plight of blind individuals in India, often neglected even by their own families and that too in this generation. This shed enough light on how the blind is treated in their own families and how they are disown by them. In place of compassion, proper treatment and care, they are facing dejection and humiliation. Even simple human values of helping them are also fading. |
Case Study - 2
Another incident was of a blind beggar, Hindu by faith, who became blind due to work related incidents. Whatever he earned out of begging in the local train his elder sister took from him and giving just enough money to him to somehow survive.
There was a marriage ceremony going on in his elder sister’s family. He was happy to be part of the occasion but to his shock and surprise he was literally kicked out by his cousin (youngest son of his sister). The reason the cousin gave for his blindness is shame for the family and he is a curse. Therefore he cannot be part of any auspicious ceremony. The cousin beat him and locked him in a room. He somehow requested others to free him and thus he could come out of the room. From then on he went in search of shelter and slept in the verandah of the government building. Thus by all this incidents we can understand how relatives and the society look onto someone who become blind in any ways.