HIDE AND SEEK

One sunny morning as I walked through the gates of the school, my eyes captured those colorful children of different age groups in various clusters occupying almost the entire ground. Each group was involved in some activity that made them feel as free and happy as butterflies. The children in one group formed a queue to resemble a train and ran all over the ground in a chain fashion producing the sound of a train. Tiny tots in another group were holding hands and singing a song happily. One set of children were totally occupied in an orchestra rehearsal. One boy was singing a beautiful song, one playing the guitar, another on the keyboard and yet another on the drums. Wow!! That was a superb melody. I learnt that the Cultural Day for the school was arriving soon and hence there were lot of other rehearsals of skit, mimics and novelties going on side by side along with the orchestra. The talents of these beautiful little children really amazed me.


As the bell rang for the lunch break, all the children started to move, took their respective plates from the stand and then formed a queue. One by one they started moving into the dining hall and once all were settled, they recited a prayer and the food was served. I could see no one talking or playing when they were taking the food. I was very surprised at the discipline of those beautiful children. As they completed eating, they started to move one by one, washed their plates and kept it on the stand in the respective places allocated to them.

Later, they moved to their respective classes and I happened to visit one of the classes. The teacher asked all students to introduce themselves with their name, hobby and ambition in life. One told that he wanted to become a great singer, another a teacher in the same school, then one wanted to become a politician, a lawyer, a musician, and the dreams simply flowed on. From their hobbies list, I learnt that each of them was talented in some way or the other. Once the intro session got over, the teacher started English class and a boy was asked to read chapter_1. The boy started reading fluently and when he completed, his classmates applauded and he sat down with a smile. I tried to take note of one of the books. However, the Braille book was Greek and Latin to me. I literally could not recognize any distinct letters even when I tried to feel the punches in the book.

I could see smiles and aspirations in the face of each child. However, my heart sank deep with the thought that these tiny wonderful gifts had been deprived of viewing this beautiful world. One dark day in our life would have simply ruined our entire attitude towards life. But, the courageous hearts of these precious gems really allured me. They never knew a color in their life other than black. Anything and everything they could see in their life was only one color” Black”. Their lives being just a game of hide and seek, without even a slight knowledge that there is a colourful world better than this game. India being a traditional country with a high population of about 1.1 billion, out of which 12 million are blind and of these 3million are corneally blind and can obtain eyesight through corneal transplantation. Again, unfortunately 1 million of those are children. For these children if corneal transplantation is not done before the age of 10 years, they will be doomed into a state of permanent irreversible blindness. I realized that I could also help these little souls to lead a normal life seeing all colors in this world, by registering myself in the nearest Eye Bank, to donate eyes after my death. If each of us could take up this as a responsibility and educate our family members, neighbours and friends about the importance of eye donation, definitely we could help in bringing light into the dark world of those charming souls, and consequently we will be privileged to enjoy the beauty of this world even after our death. Let eye donation become our family tradition. Help bringing out the hidden light that these people are seeking for. Please pledge to Donate Eyes and also motivate others!!!