128 visually impaired people head to Tirupati with buddies

BENGALURU: For 35-year-old Manjula, who is visually impaired, a three-day pilgrimage tour to Tirupati has been long pending. That she gets to go on a fully guided tour of the temple town and Talakona waterfall accompanied by a ‘buddy’, who will provide her vivid, live descriptions of her surroundings, is a dream come true.
The Whitefield resident is part of a unique group of 128 visually impaired travellers who embarked on a journey to Tirupati from Bengaluru, accompanied by more than 100 volunteers, on Friday.In addition to climbing more than 3,500 steps to reach the temple, post darshan, members of the group will also embark on an arduous 2km trek to Talakona waterfall in Chittoor district.
“I have never gone close to a waterfall and I have never trekked anywhere till date. This is one of my first trips,” said an elated Manjula.
The unique tour is aimed at bridging the gap between those who don’t have vision and the sighted. Each visually impaired member of the group is paired with a volunteer who will help the person in every step along the way. “Travelling is one of those pleasures in life that the visually impaired often do not get to experience,” explained Satish Palani, founder of Sweetness of Blindness, a Facebook-based group of volunteers who have organised six such trips in the past.
“All through the trip, a buddy system is followed,” said Palani, who started the initiative in 2017 and has been organising one such trip every three months.
By the time they are back from the trips, the visually impaired and the volunteers become friends. “This way, the ones without sight have someone whom they can call in hour of need,” he added. The volunteers, most of who are from the IT sector, are trained and made to participate in blind walks in and around Cubbon Park so that they become familiar with the concept of assisting a visually impaired traveller.
Nanjunda J, an engineering student in Mandya, said, “I am very excited to go on this trip. I do not get to travel much as I’m dependent on others. This is the first time I’m travelling out of Karnataka.”
According to Palani, one of the main concerns for the visually impaired is that they have to depend on others even for routine work. “I was moonlighting as a scribe for visually impaired students when I realised that even routine exercises such as filling up forms and going to the passport centre can be a difficult task for them,” said Palani.
In Tirupati, all the members of the group will be able to see the deity during a ‘special’ darshan arranged by the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams. Buses for the trip to Talakona falls have been provided by Sri Venkateshwara College of Engineering, Bengaluru, while funds for the trip have been collected from the volunteers who pledge anywhere upwards of Rs 1,500 per person.