Asif was proud of his eyes and had the best chance towitness serene sunsets of Jumeriah Beach. Post a grueling sales day, the beautyof twilight was his humble abode. Not only the divine calm he was alsoenthusiastic to enjoy the thrill of speed, accelerarting, peaking above 180 km/hr on the highway.
Life looked perfect and growing to the new horizons andright up his alley. He became accustomed to draw the long bow, as everythingwas turning to be the best outcome and destined to prosper. He conquered thechallenges of life with the prompt readiness and indomitable courage. One whois blessed with the glories of life, someday for sure will have to sustainthrough the gloomy days as well. He has clueless about the pain of others,until the tragedy struck a blow and weighed him down to face the demons.
On 7th Dec 2016, he acquiesced to be the mute spectator ofhis own tragedy. He lost the light of his life and in an atmosphere ofuncertainty became blind due to 7 unsuccessful consecutive Retinal Detachment surgeries.One, who was known for seeding the positivity, has now become a blob ofnegativity and refuses to see any ray of hope to rise and shine again . It wastough in the beginning but he hit it off immediately with the pellet victimswho are going through the same pain and fighting the uphill battle ofblindness. There is heart to heart connection to feel their immense sadness anddoesn’t find himself alone victim of this brutality. He began to appreciatetheir abounding patience and found them above the “flawed behavior”.
They are only left with courage, prayer and hope as alliesbut most of them live with the awareness that there will be no rescue. Now theycannot own the world they live in and the fears are lurking and hitting themvery hard both economically and emotionally. The authorities are flying blindlyhigh and have hardly spared anyone, the youngest victim being 5 years and theoldest one is 59. He was numb with misery. The figures are alarming ,68.4% ofthe pellet eye injured victims suffer from visual impairment of variousdegrees, among them more than half 42.37% are ending up with the “severeblindness”. And around 92.92% are diagnosed with a psychiatric disorders.
His extreme distress increased when he couldn’t breathe asigh of relief and plunged his heart in pity when he found that even therenowned VR surgeons don’t assure 15%-20% of vision improvement, evenwonderfully highly advanced procedures have failed badly and sometimes most ofthe pellet eye injured victims have to undergo more than 5 such criticalsurgeries and surprisingly taking the patient closer to the verge of blindness.And he concluded only miraculous intervention can do some wonders and savethese poor souls.
On 22nd April 2019, Dr. Shah Faesal requested in his FB postto provide a financial help to 19 year old female victim for her treatment. Ibelieve 90% of pellet victims have suchhorrible tales and background. This pain at the grassroots level needs audiencebut at the same time, we all have to find and muster courage to stand upagainst the injustice.
Once he requested a man in power to analyze the consequencesof their brutal practices but he was astonished to find him extremely amused byour sufferings and very politely he avoided his confrontation.
Much to his dismay…
Now at the sunset, the doleful silence takes over, hauntshim with dread of darkness, plunges into perpetual gloom and the psychoticrestleness ripples through.
May the new dawn let all pellet victims flourish peacefully!
(The author is working as a trade marketing manager in anFMCG company)