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Disabilities are indeed a strength and not a drawback, as Vasu, a blind carpenter of Kozhikode will attest.  For octogenarian Vasu, who has been blind since the age of 4, has perfected the art of seeing with his hand and exerting the right degree of pressure to the blows on the chisel.   Vasu, whose skill with the chisel once used to fetch him jobs far from home, is now confined to his home, making a living by making handles for axes and spades.

Even as light started fading from his young eyes, Vasu used to sit with his father as he worked late into the night.  Watching, rather hearing and feeling his father working on the wood, he picked up his first lessons in carpentry.  Slowly he began working on his own, measuring with his fingers and chiseling away with the tools.

“It used to be difficult at first.  I took a long time to get te feel of the tools and the amount of pressure I needed to exert on each blow,” he says.

After many erring blows and bleeding fingers, Vasu finally began to see with his mind.  The tables and cots then began to fit without any hitch.

Through the years, Vasu has been supported by his wife Ammini, who is a hunchback.  Ammini feels that her husband sees more because he is blind.  “I may miss a sep when I walk, but not him.  His brain sees everything,” she says.

And he joins with this observation about himself: “It’s my fingers that are my eyes.  I feel the wood with them and an inner understanding guides my blows,” he says.

Courtesy: Charmaine Edwards, The New Indian Express, December 17, 2004

Contributed by: Administrator 

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