Dancing Fingers

A million little hands touch my hair gently feeling its curls and length. I have so many fingers rubbing my blue bead bracelets that I do not know who they belong to. I am pulled down onto the floor as children repeatedly ask me inMarathi what my name is, and smile wide grins as their question is repetitively answered. They have been celebrating a local festival involving a huge number of coloured paints. Although they live colourless lives, darkened by their lack of sight, or perhaps pricked by a small hole of light, they celebrate the festival with as much vigour as their young counterparts outside. Palms press my cheeks as giggles follow, and within minutes I look like a blue mermaid, dripping with vibrant colour which my little friends cannot see but can feel. A tiny lady sits at my feet, unlike the others she is not vying for my attention, although her soft floating voice has captured it all but completely. She is entertaining herself by arranging six rainbow coloured plastic rings according to their size as quickly as she can. She empties them off a plastic pole and then rushes to replace them, feeling with her fingers if the shape follows a smooth triangle or a awkward wiggle. As she plays she sings, and her voice is incredible. I want her attention even though I already have that of a dozen or more girls.

By my side sits a seriously deformed girl. Her head is huge, her blind eyes bulge and her mouth hangs constantly open. She has the face that would either make sighted people stare at in fascination or turn away from in disgust. She strokes the skin of my arm with her webbed fingers, and I realise what a haven she is in as her friends have little idea that she has the appearance of a monster, and so she sits happily and confidently as she should and I hope always will. In the corner there is a television which two older girls are standing on a stool to reach. One has low vision and is peering into the screen, with her nose pressed against the images. The static is pulling her hair towards the box of images, which she can only see a partial fragment of. Her friend is feeling the buttons, tracing the plastic with her fingers while turning her head towards the direction of the sound.

A little cheeky monkey is entertaining herself and joining in the festivities by spitting on her colourless hands and then searching for a body. After locating a face she wipes her hands on the unsuspecting cheeks. Due to the commotion around me, her victims have no idea of her approach nor of the source of the fluid on their faces. She finds the little lady by my feet causing the cessation of her game of shapes and sizes. The little lady vigorously rubs her cheeks, thinking that they have been coloured blue with watered hands. I tickle the trickster's tummy, and she happily laughs that her ploy has been uncovered, but quickly dodges my arms and turns to continue her game.

The evening is growing dark and the lights remain switched off as for the girls the day is as black as the night. The dance of a proud and talented girl demonstrates the children's inert ability to locate their positions relative to their surroundings. Blindfolded I would never be able to dance with the confidence and agility which she did as she performed a rendition of a classical Indian dance. The fairy like dancer was immune to disorientation, and despite her turns and twirls constantly reorientated her body in the direction of her amazed audience. Her spinning provided me with inspiration, and I decide to share one of Deepa's favourite and most simple games.

I stand up and lift one of the little girls holding onto me. I dance her around, moving her through the air like the weightless little feather she is. The combination of the encroaching dark and our movements makes it difficult for me to see her reaction and then I hear a bubbling giggle. The game is a winner but what is unexpected is the participation of a third body. A girl a little to tall to be swung instead stands in front of me and just feels the smaller girls being lifted off the floor and swung around and around. Whenever I finish she quickly feels for another younger friend and brings her towards me. She tries to follow our movements and smiles such a beautiful and pure smile of joy and I end up swinging more for her than for the dizzy bundle of giggles in my arms.

I left to the invisible waves and enthusiastic shouts of a whole school of amazing girls. Girls who demonstrate the strength of their senses other than sight, and their precious vision built on trust and confidence in their innate perception of space, movement and orientation.