That was why, Kaladhar Bhandari, a teacher by profession, was found caressing the boundary walls of the collapsed Dharahara days after the earthquake. Drawing curious attention of some onlookers on Sunday morning this week, he was gently feeling the concrete with his palms as if that was an object very close to his heart.
"What to do, we cannot see through eyes. Our world is different than yours," he said.
Bhandari who was moving alongside the walls, trying to feel the devastation of Dharahara, got stopped by a policeman. He did not like the intervention, but reacted peacefully. "Maybe they thought I would cross the restriction line. But I can understand- I know the public is not allowed in there," he explained.
"You know the color of Dharahara?"
He smiled at Republica's query and replied, ""Yes, white! That was beautiful!"
Bhandari is visually impaired by birth. The 32- year- old has absolutely no idea what the color white means. Nor does he understand the beauty of a physical monument. Like other inborn blind people, the concept of colors is a huge puzzle for him. He says beautiful means anything they love and ugly means anything they dislike, irrespective of physical appearance.
Bhandari had climbed Dharahara just 10 days before it crumbled down. For the people without eyesight, excitement expressed by others seeing particular things help a lot. When he had climbed the Dharahara, people around him sounded happy about that. Moreover, it was not hard for him to notice that the tall tower was quite loved by young couples. When he realized that was a place basically for lovebirds, he had also made up his mind to revisit Dharahara with his loved one soon. But alas! the Dharara fell soon after.
"They may rebuild similar structure in future but the same Dharara cannot be brought back right?" wondered Bhandari.
On the fateful day, Bhandari was at Jawalakhel enjoying a fair. He had just reached at 'Kumaripati Mahotsav' after attending a function in Patan Campus, when the earthquake hit. For few seconds, Bhandari thought that his friend, who had accompanied him, had tricked him for fun.
"He thought that I took him to ship – swing (that swings back and forth). But then soon, people started shouting Bhuichalo, Bhuichalo (earthquake!) breaking his doubt," said Biplab Acharya who had accompanied Bhandari on the day. "He was clinging to me so tightly even though it was impossible to balance our body at that moment. He was quite nervous for sometime," narrated Acharya, who has just night blindness unlike Bhandari.
According to Acharya, president of Inclusive empowerment of people with Disabilities, it takes some time for people without vision to realize what is happening around them. And that makes them very vulnerable to dangerous situations like coming of an earthquake, riots, ambushes or any kind of unexpected incident.
"When the earthquake struck that day, we did not move at all. We held each other and remained there silently as we did not know which direction was safe to run to," he said.
Acharya added that most of the stress was caused by the consistent aftershocks. "Even if we are with family members, nobody cares when their own life is at stake. Our inability to see bars us from taking quick action during emergency
situations."
Acharya narrated the story of Shram Dulal, one of his friends, who nearly died because of an aftershock. Visually impaired Dulal was reading in his room in his house at Sindhupalchowk when the tremor hit. Others at home rushed out to safety in no time but he could not find the ladder to escape from his room. Soon the house crumbled, burying him. Buried in debris, he shouted for help, and was
rescued.
The phrase, seeing is believing, makes no sense for the people like Bhandariand Acharya. After the earthquake, they listened and listened to people and the news and trusted their own sense most times, although they could not experience the matter visually. Many of them clearly heard the sound of the earth, like a minor blast, when the earthquake and aftershocks hit. While people who are not visually impaired watched the hanging poles or a tree leaf to ascertain the coming of the quakes, they would concentrate on the shaking of the earth. "We were relatively calmer we guess. You can call us wiser," laughed Chinimaya Maharjan, primary teacher at Namuna Machhindra School in Lagankhel.
"I mean, many people got injured, lost their limbs, while trying to escape the earthquake. But we always stood where we were. We neither panicked nor screamed too much."
According to Bhandari who is also the president of Blind Youth Association Nepal, there are estimated 200,000 visually impaired in Nepal. And their status post-earthquake is unknown, just like that of hundreds of other people with disabilities.
Sudarshan Subedi, president of National Federation of Disabled Nepal (NFDN), has shown dissatisfaction on the government's relief approach and has said there aren't separate programs for the disabled victims of the earthquake. He urged the government to be more sensitive towards the people who cannot see, hear or walk, on Wednesday. There is no separate data on the condition of the disabled during and post – earthquake, he said.
"Moreover, many of the critically injured are never going to fully recover, adding to the number of disabled," said Subedi.
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