Experience with Dark and Light-Himani Auplish

The reason I opted for 'Space and Place A' was because I was really excited to work on this project called 'Dark and Light'. We started working on visiting card which were for both visually able and visually impaired. I started with some research on braille and then made a simple card with my name written with braille on it. The main challenge in this project was to get the right paper, tools and to understand the right way to braille. We had to poke a pin behind a 400gsm paper and write the letters in mirror image.

After the visiting cards we moved on to making t shirts for people who cannot see but can only feel the clothes they are wearing. We had to get the right cloth and add textures to it. I made a simple design on a kurta made out of beads, I also added 'ghoonghroo' to add the element of sound to it.

Then we were sent out to find out how blind people interact in public spaces, institutional spaces and transportation. We are asked to gather information about the existing policies for the blind in all these sectors. We were divided into groups and my group was handling the transportation part. We further divided ourselves and covered different sectors. I went to the airport with three more people and interviewed a lot of people. Everyone's response was very general, everyone seem to be very sympathetic towards the blind and everyone is always there to help them. Maybe this is the normal practice but I feel that there is more to this story and we need to talk to people who might tell us the actually situation.

After understanding the people and the infrastructure outside we took the initiative to turn our campus 'Srishti N3' into a blind friendly institutional space.It started with studying our space here and we found out that there were a lot of changes that were necessary, for example the bathrooms didn't had a raised platform thus making it unsafe for the visually challenged. Me and four more people worked on ramps that were placed outside the washrooms, thus making the washrooms easily accessible for the blind. Then I also helped my other group mates to make sign boards in the washroom. By the end of it there was signage on every floor and all the doors had braille on them, the lift buttons had braille sheets and there was a manual made for the visually abled and the visually impaired.

At the end of three weeks I have realized that the life of blind people is no different than ours, their needs their behavior is all identical. The only thing different about them is that they are differently abled. We don't have to sympathize with them because they have abilities than most of us lack. Three weeks have been really amazing and I am looking forward for more.