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“I am teaching myself to play the harmonium. I want to be able to live independently”

The average person might find it difficult to imagine that a person with 100 per cent blindness would have a favourite colour. For Nikita Lokhande (18) from Bhopal, it is white. Colour is an abstract concept for Blind individuals but they do perceive it – only, differently from how the sighted do.
 
Nikita, the youngest of three girls born to Devshila and Ratan Lokhande, was diagnosed with blindness when she was six days old. The parents hunted for cures, initially trying out ‘treatment’ at Shankar Netralaya in Bhopal and, when she was five, at AIIMS in Delhi. She underwent an unsuccessful eye surgery in 2016 and more treatment for the next few years, to no avail. Finally they had to accept the fact that she could only sense light, and make out day from night.
 
Fortunately, Nikita received assistance from the right quarters at different stages of her journey. When she was around seven, ‘Sudhir Kale-sir’ from Drishtiheen Kalyan Sangh used to come home to teach her Braille three times a week for a few years. She attended the mainstream Government Deepshikha School and although it had no Braille tutors it had very helpful teachers. She studied there till Standard Eight.
 
Ratan was in government service and the entire responsibility of looking after Nikita rested on Devshila’s shoulders. When she died, aged 55, in 2022, Ratan found himself floundering as he faced the new task of caring for 15-year-old Nikita. He even thought of quitting his job but his colleagues dissuaded him and offered to share his workload. After all, he had only a few more years to go before he retired at 62, on 31 March 2025.
 
‘Deepti-madam’ from Umang Gaurav Deep Welfare Society, an organisation for deaf-mute children, helped Nikita to complete her 10th standard through the Open School system. Ratan narrates how he would drop her at Umang in the morning. A helpful neighbour would pick her up at noon, bring her home and feed her the tiffin that Ratan would have prepared for her. The neighbour would then take her to Deepshikha by 2 p.m. and Ratan would pick her up at 5 p.m.
 
In Devshila’s absence, Ratan also had to confront other aspects of Nikita’s physical growth. It is usually the mothers, in India and perhaps elsewhere in the world, who take care of their daughters’ personal hygiene. Like many fathers, Ratan knew very little about menstruation, and in the beginning there were times when he sent Nikita to school without knowing she had her period. “I looked it up on the internet,” he says. “I was also advised by a friend who looks after his intellectually disabled daughter.” Ratan would fit the sanitary pad onto Nikita’s panty which she would then wear.
 
For class 11 Nikita was admitted into Government Naveen Kanya Vidyalaya. The school has a tie-up with the National Association for the Blind (NAB) which supports visually impaired children. Nikita is in class 12 now and for the past year she has been staying in NAB’s hostel and coming home on weekends. She is taught life skills so that she can independently handle activities of daily living, and she has started using the white cane.
 
When she is home Nikita gets up at 8 a.m. and after her morning tea at 9 a.m. she takes a bath followed by pooja – she is a disciple of the Buddha. Then she carries on with her school studies. She helps Ratan to do household chores such as sweeping, kneading flour to make dough, washing dishes and so on. Her elder sisters Jyoti and Neha, both married with kids, live elsewhere. She used to like playing carrom with them and now it’s her cousin Rani whom she competes with in this board game. She also likes to eat chowmein!
 
Noticing her fondness for singing and interest in music, Ratan bought her a harmonium which she is learning to play by herself. He says, “My relatives used to tell me, why are you wasting time and money on educating her when we can look after her ourselves? But today, when she is studying in Class 12, the same people tell me I’ve done a good thing by educating her. I want her to be independent.”
 
Nikita’s dream also is to be able to earn and live independently. And if she continues to get the kind of support she has received, there is no doubt she will do so in future.