A Feast, Blindfolded in Darkness, to Understand Challenges of the Blind

By Jawahar Malhotra

HOUSTON: When the main entrée was served it all started to get a bit more difficult and it felt much easier keeping one’s eyes closed behind the sky blue cardboard blindfolds than trying to keep them open. The pleasant female voice of the server was reassuring, with a soft touch of her palm against the shoulder. “Here’s your chicken,” she said gently, placing the plate in front of me. I nodded, muttered a thank you and reached out for my knife and fork.

They were where I had left them after finishing off the bowl of salad, which I had been able to visually “spot” before placing the blindfold on. Then the lights had been turned off and there were loud exclamations of delight, some shrills of laughter and commotion all around as the room full of 80 people took on the challenge of trying to finish the salad – and sipping from their wine or other drink – from the table laid out for a three course dinner. Most turned to each other, pointing cameras, hoping that they would get a picture of the others at their table. Behind the blindfolds, you could still experience the spill of bright bursts of flash photography, accompanied by titters of joy. “This is so much fun,” said my neighbor, echoing an often repeated sentiment.

The night had started conventionally enough at the Lighthouse for the Blind building on West Dallas near Shepherd Drive, with a social hour in the hallway and front entrance lobby over drinks and a few hors d’oeuvres as the mostly Indian crowd came together last Friday, September 12. After they moved in to roundtables set for dinner in the dining hall, they donned white plastic aprons, in case they made accidental spills, and placed the masks over their foreheads.

Lighthouse President Gibson Duterroil – known to most of his staff and Board as Gib – egged the people on to put on the accessories “in case you make a spill”, explaining that the experience “will heighten your sense of what a blind person has to deal with.” He described how the Lighthouse has been started 75 years ago in 1939 by Nellie Mae Wimberly, a legally blind teacher, and James G. Donovan, a prominent lawyer, as the Harris County Association for the Blind which was a daycare for the blind as there were no other opportunities for them. Over the years, the Lighthouse began teaching sewing skills and the manufacture of household items like pot holders, brooms and so on. In the 1950’s, under its first paid executive director, Geraldine Rougagnac, the Lighthouse moved to 3530 West Dallas, which today houses the agency’s Industrial Division.

Since then the Lighthouse has helped the blind to learn Braille and many new skills so that they can enter the workplace and lead productive lives. The Lighthouse serves 9,000 to 11,000 people each year out of an estimated 78,000 who are blind or visually impaired in the Houston area. “We want you to be able to see what they can do, but we need donations to provide the technologies for this to happen,” the affable Duterroil added.

The event was organized by Club 24 which supports the Lighthouse and also as several of its Directors and members – Ashok Garg, Pradeep Gupta and Prakash Roopani – are on the Board of the Lighthouse. Club 24 President Asha Dhume said the event was “an opportunity to bring awareness in a most impactful way to the needs of the blind and the good work that the Lighthouse does” and was coordinated by Manisha Gandhi, Nat Krishnamurthy, Lakshmi Murthy and Pradeep Gupta.

After people fumbled with their entrée and tried to identify what the vegetarian and non-vegetarian meals (catered by Mandola’s Italian restaurant) were, they were asked to take off the blindfolds and describe their experience. Most were exhilarated and Dhume described how this type of setting was a huge hit in a couple of restaurants in San Francisco and elsewhere. Krishnamurthy related how he had experienced this at a similar event in Singapore years ago and wanted to explore the same in Houston. “At Club 24, we want to reach the mainstream and find different ways contribute to society,” he added.

Apart from the novel experience, the guests were able to hear from the inspiring life experiences of Sandhya P. Rao, a young woman who has overcome severe physical hardships and her our visual impairment to become a lawyer who works with US District Court for the Southern District of Texas in Houston and in the Board of the Lighthouse.

Unable to walk due to severely brittle bones, Rao’s fingers “read” from her speech in Braille as she described how she was born with severe osteoporosis and has broken every bone in her body at least once in her life. At 18 months old, doctors discovered that her optic nerves were being compressed but surgery damaged the nerve in her right eye rather than correct it, leaving her with partial vision in only the left eye.

Continuing lightheartedly, Rao described how at age 5 she attended West University Elementary School and learnt Braille, “but my Dad had to first learn Braille,” she joked. The Lighthouse got Braille books for her and she went for classes every Wednesday, when she also learnt to play the piano. Rao warmly remembered a woman who would transcribe the music and print it out in Braille for her, and then Rao would memorize it all.

“The Lighthouse brought reading and music into my life and my adamant parents instilled a love of learning in me and urged me to pursue my dreams,” Rao said beamingly. “And my sister made me laugh and awakened in me a love of competition.” Confident in her capabilities, Rao graduated from Rice University and later went to Stanford University to get her law degree.

“My dad (Dr. Potu N. Rao) retired early as a cancer researcher and went with me to Stanford to help,” she recalled, adding, “I am more appreciative of what I have. Time is a gift you must not squander.”