Brave Hearts

Author(s): Kumarpal Desai
Publisher: Eye Care Foundation

Page 10

Foreword
- Vijay Merchant [India's renowned cricketer, worked for and
championed the cause of the differently abled.] Mr. Kumarpal Desai has done me the honour of asking me to pen a foreword for this book, Apangna Ojas. May be my deep involvement in the cause of all handicapped people - 'the blind, the paraplegic, the deaf and mute, the leprosyaffected and the mentally sub-normal — has induced him to approach me. I consider this as a very great compliment.
Who are the handicapped? Is it those who are at birth affected by some handicap or those who suffer a handicap later in life? Are they really handicapped in the sense in which we consider a handicapped person? I do not think so. I have always believed that the blind are not those who have no eyes to see but those who have the eyes to see but will not. Similarly, the above categories of the handicapped are not the handicapped people really, but it is we the common people in society who will not see, understand and appreciate the great fight that these people put up for survival in a very competitive world. They do many things which all ablebodied people can do and sometimes do them even better than us. I have a young married lady in our Hindustan Mills by the name of Meenakshi Bhatt. She is totally blind and so is her husband Odhavji Bhatt. They have now been married 9 years and they have to lovely sighted daughters. Ever since their