The blind spot

Humour, they say, is the best doctor, and thus laughter is the best medicine. I feed myself ample doses of self-deprecation every day, sometimes absent-mindedly. That self-deprecation was boosted recently when I met an old friend after 10 years and it just opened up the togetherness in follies that we used to share a decade back. (Yes Shake, talking about you) Togetherness becomes a crossroad for individual actions and it leads in many directions. Sometimes it leads a budding acquaintance into a great friendship, while at other times it sends off good friends into hopeless intolerance. So is togetherness a bitter medicine?

Isn't it an irony that we crave a lot for company and yet when it is all around us, we seek solitude?

Today in the train on my way back from work, I saw this man, dressed immaculately with a red tie and a trimmed jacket, and even a carefully-kept thin blade of beard. He was making his way round the half-crowded coach and people were giving way to him. New York trains are not the smooth, easy variety that places like Singapore boast of. Here they are rough, irregular, jerky and have various moods. This man was blind. He finally came to a stop near me and grabbed onto the pole for support. I am still trying to figure out how a blind man walks across in the maddening crowd, goes down stairs (elevators are rare here), gets onto narrow crowded platforms and then manages to board the right train amongst a series of confusingly similar trains that come on the same platform!

What would his view be on memories and togetherness? Would he be missing people and places? How do you miss them when you cannot see? Is it then that the inward eye reigns supreme? Or is it then that you fumble around mentally in the immediate demands of daily life - just to get across the street, getting the shower on without turning the hot water knob, eating without spilling, climbing the stairs without tripping, and even brushing your teeth correctly? 

When I think about what he must be going through every moment of every day, it opens up a whole new world where only sound, smell and touch dictate the universe.

But well - this is a state where a blind man is the Governor!

Perhaps the answer lies in the green grass that we stand on, and not the greener grass on the other side of the fence. The inward eye sees all, forgets nothing and yet continues to look for answers to all these questions.