Holi, the festival of colours is celebrated with great zeal across the country and people have already started the celebrations beforehand with a variety of vibrant colours, but how do those people celebrate it whose lives have turned colourless forever? For the blind students at Mumbai’s only blind girls school, Holi is not a festival of colours but a festival of touch and feel.
Holi Celebrations At Kamla Mehta Dadar School for the Blind
The Kamla Mehta Dadar School For The Blind has been educating blind girls free of cost for the last 123 years. Underprivileged girls with vision impairment from across Maharashtra study at this school where they celebrate every festival with more enthusiasm and ardour. Like most of the educational institutions, this Dadar school also organised Holi celebrations for its students without any stigma regarding their physical challenge.
Although these girls can not see the variety of colours they play with, they can surely feel the touch of these colours when applied on their face. Since the last few years, the school authorities have opened up the holi celebrations for everyone where anyone can visit the school and play holi with these girls. On Friday, around 35 people participated to celebrate the festival with 160 girls studying at the school.
Mission To Celebrate Holi With Inclusivity
Bharat Gada, trustee of Kamla Mehta Dadar School For The Blind, said, “We do not want these kids to think that they can’t celebrate holi as they can’t see the colours. In fact, these girls enjoy the festival more than we do in our celebrations. Playing with the colours on the beats of music, these girls forget their pains and experience the feel of this festival.”
The main aim of the school authority behind organising this festival is to give these girls an opportunity to indulge in the celebration of the festival and drop the negative thoughts that occur due to the disability. To make the celebration more interesting for the students, the school allows visitors and donors to celebrate Holi with these girls to make them feel included.
Varsha Mahesh Ved, one of the visitors at the holi festival, said, “I had lost my eyesight 24 years back and after two years I received eyes from someone’s donation. Therefore I know the pain that the people with visual impairment go through. It is important that these children celebrate life so that they can save themselves from the depression caused due to this disability. Such activities should be carried out at all the institutions where blind children are studying.”