Social Service

Darkness. Born with darkness, living with darkness. Those of us who have been blessed with vision, no  matter how blurry, can’t really imagine how it must be to be blind. But the students I visit nearly every week at Samarthanam, have lived, and will live their entire life in darkness.

Samarthanam is a trust fund for the disabled, located in Jayanagar, Bangalore, very close to my house. I first got familiar with it last year, when I started recording audio books with my father for the blind students. It was easy, but time-consuming. Later, for the IAYP programme at school, I was required to do social service for one hour every week. So this July, I started volunteering at Samarthanam. I’ll be honest, it was a real burden for me. Whenever I went to Samarthanam with my mom or dad, lots of other volunteers would already be there. But finding available English-medium students wasn't very easy. Not all the students were quick learners, but the ones who were, surprised us time and again with their swift understanding and strong memory. It’s funny how we always talk of the poor in India, and never once stop to think of the disabled, and how hard it must be for them.

It’s hard for us too. We, their teachers or readers or guides. I’ll be completely truthful. I’m so much more comfortable in Samarthanam than before, and yet it’s something of a chore, because teaching isn’t easy. It’s not as simple as just going to that place, grabbing a book, and reading to the blind students…... It’s going to that place, taking the book the student wants to study from, sitting with them, and explaining – whether it’s Science or History or English. And this makes all the difference. Half the difficulties arise because of their blindness. How do you explain something like History to these students? It means nothing to them but dates and names and wars. They can’t imagine what could have happened; it’s not even applicable in their everyday lives. Don’t even get me started on diagrams and maps, they’re impossible to deal with!!

The other part is my own huge challenge - my inability to communicate properly in any Indian language. I speak to the students in a fragmented Kannada, a tortured, broken Hindi. After one hour of reading and explaining, my throat is parched, not just because I voiced out so many words, but because of the effort it takes to try to explain facts or complex topics or even other words, in languages I barely know. It’s exhausting, I’ll be completely upfront about it.

But I think that the biggest lesson I’ve learned through this all is that donating money for charity, is not the same as spending your time, pouring in your heart, giving your full 100% to doing some social service. There are times when I’m so frustrated with myself, I want to just drop this thing and walk away, but probably the only thing that stops me is that this is compulsory. And chatting with them, that’s my reward. Chatting is fun, it’s easy. But the last 15 minutes of chatting only comes after 45 minutes of teaching. That’s when I learn about them, when they become my friends, not my students.

So what’s the moral of the story? Well, there isn't one…exactly. I haven’t learned to love social service. I have learned to respect and like the differently-abled people, yes, but there’s been nothing life-altering. But maybe that’s it, maybe this social service will get me a good grade, and a few good friends….