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A Perpetual Wish of a Father to his Blind Son

Mary Aage
DW, Special Education Advisor
DEO, Dadeldhura

Impression that comes through imagination may be strong but the one that comes out of first hand experience is so subtle and powerful that one may have to grope for words to describe the incident. An MS Nepal DW in the remote far western hilly district of Dadeldhura captures the tell-a-tale of a family in abject poverty compounded by unspeakable miseries. She begins by outlining the kind of job she does there with others.

We have one Resource Class (RCL) for blind or weak-sighted, three RCL's for the deaf or hard of hearing and three RCL's for mentally retarded. To give those students with special teaching needs for better opportunity to learn, they have been taken away from their families and gathered in small RCLs, with maximum 10 students, which are connected to an ordinary primary or secondary school. The first RCL in Dadeldhura was established some four years ago. A Resource Teacher, with one month's special training, is teaching the students all the subjects. As the children stay at the school, a caretaker is hired to manage the logistics of the students. A student should only stay in the RCL for a short period of one or two years and the teaching is also supposed to prepare the students for integration in their home school as far as possible. However, practice has not come up to these expectations as envisioned by the Basic and Primary Educational Programme (BPEP). The students have shown an inclination to stay too long in the RCL's. One of the many reasons for this might be that the state pays NRs.1000 each per month for the maintenance of the students, whereas the integration in their home school means that the parents have to pay for the maintenance themselves. These matters are now for us to change. First of all, the RCL students are to be assessed and on the basis of this, it should be decided whether integration is possible or not. It might also be difficult to reintegrate some of the students in their families as we have heard from our visits in the RCL's that some of the parents don't fetch their children when the school closes for vacations or festivals.

Upon questioning the caretaker we came to know that a father had brought his deaf girl to the RCL three years ago. After the mother died, the father asked the caretaker to look after her. The caretaker tried to convince the father to visit the school, but since then nobody has asked for the girl and the caretaker has been left to take care of the child. This is a part of the job, which evokes our "unprofessional sides."

Another matter, which went straight to our hearts, was when one of the fathers during the training was sharing his story about his disabled child with us.

We asked him if he would share his story with the readers of "EkChhin". He agreed without any hesitation.

The 53 years old father, Dambare Sarki, lives in a village near Syaule, Dadeldhura with his wife, Laxmi, and a daughter, who is 24 and a blind son, who is 16. He lives by sewing shoes and a little agriculture. His son Bashudev is a student in Jogbudha Resource class for the blinds. When Dambare married Laxmi they were very young, 16 and 12 years old respectively.

Four years later they had their first child. All together, seven children, but they lost five of them early. They have no inkling as to what their children died of. Only the second of their children, a daughter, and the third in row, a son, Bashudev, are with them to share their hearts. To a question how the son had become blind the man said at birth he had no impairments, but five years later, when Dambare was repairing shoes in the bazaar, he got the message that his son had become ill. He hurried back home. Washing the feverish face of his son he discovered that one of his eyes was covered with something like "a white cloud". Three days later the same thing happened to the other eye. As Bashudev started to feel his way, the parents realized that the son might have lost his sight. They took him to hospital, but a local doctor told them to take their son to an eye hospital in Kathmandu. However, shortly after, there was an eye camp in the area, so they went there brimming with hope that they would find cure. The eye specialist told them that it was impossible to save his sight, but nobody told them what had caused the blindness.

At that time Dambare and Laxmi had lost so many children and their only son alive had become blind. The father was in such a grief that he often lost his sense. Overwhelmed by anguish and grief he had decided to renounce his home to become a sadhu (a holy man) but some of the villagers stopped him and persuaded him to stay for the sake of his family. To my query how he and his wife managed to comfort after so many losses, Dambare said just before their third eight year old son died the family had gathered around him and the mother was crying. The dying son tried to comfort his mother saying: "Why are you crying, mother, you still have your husband and my brother." Having said the words the ailing son died, leaving the whole family battered and bruised at heart.

Every day, when they are eating and when they go to bed they remember their losses. If his blind son can be able to see or if he can be able to get a job, it would give solace to the family in tumult. The father is hopeful that his son may see the light some day again. Dambare pleaded to me, "I will offer one of my eyes to my son. The eye-camp told me that transplantation was not possible, but I am still hopeful that may be possible in big cities like Kathmandu. Please ask about this at the eye-hospital again, when you go to Kathmandu and inform me what I need to do." To my question why he would offer one eye to his son, he said, "he is my only son and if he could see like any of us there would be better chances for him to get a job."

I also asked Dambare what he thought about his son's education. The father did not know anything about education for disabled until he went to India to work where he heard about it for the first time. When Bashudev was 13, Dadeldhura started a RCL for the blinds and the teacher came to him and asked him to send his son there. Now he is very satisfied with the RCL in Jogbudha and Bashudev is learning well, but he has a long way to go to finish his education. He is also very fond of the blind teacher working there in the common secondary school. The teacher is teaching his son and other blind students in Braille writing in his spare time and he gives the blind students a reason to hope that they also might be able to become just as educated as others and get a job.

Five of his seven children have died, the family is viciously poor, and the only son is blind and yet Dambare finds great comfort when Bashudev tells him that there is light at the end of the tunnel. "My son tells me not to worry about his future. He assures me that he will be able to find a way of living when he is grown up," narrates the father, looking at the sky. Bashudev is keen on his studies and is fond of singing.

To my query if he felt the sense of guilt or bitterness for his fate and what wishes he had for his own life, Dambare says, 'God has decided this life for me. I don't think it is a punishment from God. I just think my wife and I had bad luck. My earning is often not enough to make my ends meet. We are poor. Sometimes we must fight with hunger. If I could, I would like to be able to start a small shop, but it costs around 20,000 rupees that I don't have. I would like to get a job but how could I when I am uneducated?" Looking at the people like Dambare in the remote terrains of the country who are reeling under poverty and whose life is so precarious, I say, "let our poverty alleviation endeavours really change the lives of the people like these."