If you are a frequent traveller on the local trains that start from Howrah station and head out for the suburbs you would certainly not miss them. One day or the other you will come across them. They, these two men, both are blind and yet so much different, different in their attitudes towards their lives that are shrouded in a perpetual cloak of darkness. You, seated in one of those wooden benches, only if you are lucky enough to claim a seat defeating the jostling crowd, munch on nuts you bought for a rupee from one of those many hawkers and wait for the train to roll and this is when you see a blind young man in soiled clothes and a bag slung across his shoulder walk along the aisle, finding his way with the aid of his walking stick, and plead for a coin. His heart-rending pleas would make you, like many others among your co- passengers, reach for your wallet and fish for changes. After he has moved on to the next compartment, you would notice a hawker selling chocolates that he carried in a large transparent plastic bag enter the compartment. Actually at first you would barely notice him but a few passing glances and you would like to take a closer look at him. You would realize that this young man selling chocolates is blind. This unexpected realization makes you happy. The happiness you feel when you see a man go beyond his limitations and do something extraordinary. He could have easily chosen to beg and reap the benefits of sympathy of people who can see the colors of this world. He could have as well sit at home and let his family feed him. Yet he has chosen to do something, which probably none expected him to do. The first man to me is just a poor blind man who begs for living and who needs some pity from all of us. But this second man is a hero to me. I don’t like the kind of chocolates he sells so I have never bought any from him. I don’t want to buy from him out of pity because I feel a hero does not need someone’s pity and perhaps he too does not want any one to show him pity.
