For the Benefit of Those Who See: Dispatches from the World of the Blind by Rosemary Mahoney

Author:Rosemary Mahoney
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780316043427
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Published: 2014-01-14T00:00:00+00:00

As I got up to leave that night, Sabriye gave me a flashlight to use on the walk home. I said good night, went out to the road, and set off at a brisk jog to get the return trip over with as quickly as I could. Similar to the way Sabriye wagged the tip of her white cane before her, I shone the beam of light from side to side as I ran, looking for any threat. The sides of the road were littered with palm fronds and bits of coconut shells. I hoped that the sound of my heavy footsteps would scare off the snakes and turkeys, and I thought that if some snake was chasing me, he wouldn’t be able to catch me if I was running. (When I finally saw my first rat snake, I realized that even if I sprinted, I could not outrun it. I had been walking on the main road near Vellayani Temple amid scores of people heading home on foot after work when I turned my head and saw an enormous, sinister mustard-green snake the thickness of an engorged fire hose wriggling vigorously toward me across an empty lot. The snake, nine or ten feet long, was moving at what I can describe only as an urgent pace, as if being chased. It slowed suddenly when it reached the hot pavement and then glided its way idly across the crowded road amid the feet of the pedestrians. Appalled, not quite believing my eyes, I stopped in my tracks. But when I saw that the snake evoked no reaction whatever from the Indian crowd—the people stepped blithely, some of them shoeless, over or around this slithering, glistening mass of muscle—I began walking again toward the snake with my heart in my throat. I continued walking because I suffer the sin of pride; I am loath to reveal that I am afraid of a physical threat. I simply refused to be the only person in the crowd with her palms to her cheeks screaming, Mother of God, don’t you people see that the biggest, grossest snake in the world is about to wrap itself around your ankles? So, I carried on, doing what the Indians did. I made sure to show no emotion whatever, although every inch of my being was recoiling in primal disgust and fear. The snake disappeared into the long grass on the other side of the road but stayed horribly in my mind for days afterward.)

The state of Kerala suffers much the same poverty, overpopulation, pollution, disorder, and general social mayhem that the rest of India suffers, but Kerala has the added hardships of a rampant wildlife and an overbearing climate. To my mind, Kerala is extremely India. When people asked me where I was going to be in India and I responded, “Kerala,” they inevitably said, “Oh, Kerala is beautiful!” Kerala may be beautiful, but I am unable to see the beauty. I have never been in an

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