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OFFTRACK
Indore, Madhya Pradesh
 A
Hand and an Eye
That's
what this Writers' Bank gives the visually impaired
By
N.K. Singh
Harish
Shinde, 21, is visually impaired. Taking exams is difficult for him-he
needs someone to write his papers. Rules prescribe that the writer should
not be educated up to the level of the examination he is writing. That
causes problems. It means finding someone who has not passed Class X and
is not having exams himself; and, of course, someone who is willing to
take up the task. "It also means uncertainty till the last moment,"
says Harish's father, Ramesh Shinde, a homeopathic practitioner in Indore.
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| Taking
exams has become easier for these students, thanks to Atrolia |
But that
was before the Writers' Bank. This year, when Harish appeared for his
Class X examination, he contacted the city-based Writers' Bank for the
Blind, which arranged for him a writer from its pool of 500 members.
Writers
are required only for those visually impaired who are studying beyond
Class VII-up to the middle-school level, one can write one's examination
in Braille. With the formation of the Writers' Bank, the 120 blind students
in Indore can breathe easy now. The novel idea is the brainchild of Ravi
Atrolia, a police inspector who has made it his cause to help the visually
impaired pursue their studies. Atrolia produces what he calls "talking
books" and distributes them among the blind. These are essentially
audio cassettes on which the contents of various textbooks are recorded.
The talking
books are designed to help blind students who go to normal schools, and
not educational institutions meant only for them. Says Atrolia: "I
discovered that blind students pass through a great deal of mental agony
on the eve of examinations, looking for writers. The last-minute uncertainty
affects their performance too." He initially formed a loose-knit
group to help those who needed writers and went from school to school
to enlist the support of the teaching community and students. He soon
discovered that there was no dearth of volunteers.
Volunteers
always wanted to it: Manju Joshi, a teacher associated with the Writers'
Bank, says people were always willing to help. "What was required,"
she adds, "was someone to make the effort more systematic and an
organisation to channelise the volunteers' energy."
The bank
has helped many blind students improve their performance. Roopa Gadodia,
who graduated this year with a first division, is one of them. Not completely
blind, she used to write her own papers in the past. "But the results
were always dismal," she recalls. This year the bank sent Priya Johari,
a first-year BSc student, to help her out. As in Shinde's case, the writer
turned out to be very dedicated. Having achieved a first division, Gadodia
now regrets that she did not use a writer earlier.
Not all
writers are as good. Grumbles Manju Patel, a visually impaired second-year
BA student: "Many of them are very slow and lack command over the
language. This affects our performance." It happens when those studying
in higher classes are busy with their own examinations and the writers
come from very junior classes. But as she and other inmates of a blind
girls' hostel at Indore admit, that's more of an exception.
Ability
apart, the commitment of most volunteers cannot be doubted. Altruism seems
to be the common motive behind their enrolment as writers. Lila Patidar,
a student of Class XI at Malhar Ashram Girls' School, Indore, worked as
a writer for Afzal Hussain for his Class XII examination this year. "When
the results were out and I learnt that he had passed, I felt as if I had
passed that examination myself," says Patidar.
Atrolia,
meanwhile, has a new goal. He wants to provide writers to visually impaired
candidates appearing for public service commission examinations. "It
is my dream," says Atrolia, "that one day a blind student passes
one such examination with the help of a writer provided by me." Patel,
for one, is determined to fulfil that dream.
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