Blind Meher's Family - Living life in a world of Darkness

Here at Barpali lives a family  where all the siblings are blind by birth. It is a bhulia meher family, a community whose prime vocation is weaving of cotton based cloths. They are three brothers by the name Chaitanya Meher (63), Fakira Meher (60), Rabindra Meher (57) and sister Subhabati Meher (54).  They had  one more blind sister  by the name Sukanti Meher  (the eldest) but she passed away a decade ago. Blindness is not a genetic disorder. Unlike these siblings, their parents were physically fit, and neither  their children are blind.

Over here people believe, it was a curse on the family. Three of these brothers are married, while the sister Subhabati is a spinster who stays along with her three brothers, under one shelter which was provided by their late father.  Once  in a month they  come out of their hatch   to reach  NAC Office to collect the handicap pension. Each of them get Rs.200 /- (roughly 4 US $). One of their children escorts them to the NAC Office.

There is no other handicap which could be categorised worse than the blindness itself. It destabilises the domestic atmosphere of the entire family. As a consequence, in many families a blind person is kicked out  to the streets to make a living on his own by begging. But, this Meher family did not opt to surrender themselves to the prevailing circumstances. Deprived of the vision, they failed to undertake the vocation of their community i.e. weaving of Sambalpuri handloom sarees. Instead, they opted to do the secondary job of their trade. It is to open the knots of the bandha or ikat. Not many opt to do this job, as it is a labour intensive cottage industry. 

[Sishupal Meher a young kid of the family studying in Class 8th]

Their children go to the streets to collect the dyed knotted bunch of threads from the weavers. All four of them seat calmly at home and open these knots entire day. Mostly each of these bunches of threads carry 40 knots at different places. They are paid a meagre Rs 3 (Rupees Three) only to open the knots on a bunch of threads. At most, each of them is able to open ten bunches of threads a day.  So, each of them  make around  Rs 30  for the whole day’s work,  which  works out to be less than one $ a day !! Top of it, they do not even get this job on a regular basis. Things can’t get more worse than this.

“To be blind is not miserable; but not to be able to bear the blindness, that is    miserable”

                                                                                                   - John Milton

Though this family is under-privileged,  but till date  they have not been issued with a BPL  (Below Poverty Line) card. In the State of Odisha, a BPL Card holder is eligible to get 30 kg of rice every month at Rs 2 per kg. But most of the time this quota of rice is being wrongly channelled to the open market by the authorities, thus, forcing the poor people to buy the same rice at Rs 15 per kg in the open market.

However the irony is that, around 80 percent of Barpali population is not aware about the existence of this family (including this writer, until recently) as they leads a secluded life at home with their prevailing circumstances.  

Now you judge who is actually blind !!

kiranbima@gmail.com

E. KIRAN MOHAN,

C\o. Dr.E.R.Rao (M.D),

Tehsil Chowk,

At\PO – BARPALI – 768 029,

Dist. Bargarh, Orissa, India.

Cell # 91 99 371 20565