A Techie Who's Blind and Deaf-- and Becomes a Father, Husband and Businessman ( part 1 of 2 parts )

Another article in a series about the strength of "weak people "

If we should ever feel burdened by the knowledge

of our weakness…let us remember what  the Lord

told St. Paul during his time of trial : "My graces

is sufficient for  you,  for my power is made perfect

 in weakness ." ( from Conversations with God

by Francis Fernandez )

[Note: All spoken or written  words attributed to Bapin

in this article were communicated to me either by the

tactile American Sign Language or a Telebraille

 machine. ]

By Robert R. Schwarz

         Many years ago I was  saddened and  dismayed by the death of two friends whom I had considered paragons of emotional,  physical, and intellectual strength. One took his  own life, and alcoholism killed the other. (What had I not discerned about them ? ! ) As a journalist with an attitude of a wagon train scout of yesteryear, I set out to know how ineptly our society  defines   human  weakness or strength.   

                                             

This report is about a young man ,   Anindya 'Bapin' Bhattacharyya , a man greatly weakened but never  defeated by enormous  tragedy .  We begin his amazing trek one  night in India  around a potato-roasting  campfire , where  eight-year-old  Bapin sat with his rugby  team members.  

Bapin and  Dinah  

    Blinded by             Jealously

  Their school is near  the India farmland village of Telari, where Bapin was born and where 85 per cent of the population is  illiterate and poverty stricken.   
The Bengali language of  the soccer team rang with cheer about  their recent game victory. They had just elected Bapin team captain.  One team member, however,  had been sure the captaincy was to be his , and he now  grew increasingly  morose . He continued to stare at the fire until it burned to red coals.  How can you all  have a captain who is deaf and blind in one eye, he must have thought, for he suddenly leaped up , scooped up several  glowing coals and threw them at Bapin's face.  

 Bapin had courageously coped with life after being born deaf and after losing one eye in a soil-digging accident. But now he was all deaf and all blind. Where in the world would there be help, asked  his parents. Certainly not near Telari.

***    

 Bapin expressed his tragedy to me during our initial interview several years ago: "My blindness frustrated me because I did not understand how to express my problems, and became angry and mischievous .I often would sneak out of the house to make trouble while everyone was having a siesta. I would sometimes throw hay through my neighbors' windows. Other times I would lock their doors from outside by hooking up chains."

Friends and neighbors throughout the family's countryside saw no hope that Bapin's  life would ever become human.   "Although I was troubled as a child, " he recalled,  " I found a little peace in creative expression. I developed a hobby by using manual skills to make statues of Indian gods and goddesses through woodworking and ceramics. Since my mother was a talented artist, she always offered to paint these statues for me."

Something else  would deeply trouble him much more  in future years : his  inability to forgive the youth who destroyed his one remaining eye.

 

A Life Completely Changed By  Learning 

Braille and Sign Language--and Prayer 

    The family for four years searched unsuccessfully in India for a school equipped to educate a deaf-blind student. Then, through the efforts of a persevering father and a kind aunt, Bapin in 1983 received a scholarship to attend the Perkins School for the Blind in Watertown, Massachusetts. Airline tickets for Mr. Bhattacharyya and son to America cost the father one  year's salary. "My father accompanied me to be my English-to- Bengali translator , "  Bapin later wrote in a short  biography. "All I knew was English alphabet letters and a few words such as 'I love you,' 'I want to go to the bathroom,'  'I want to eat,' and, 'I want to go to sleep.'  The enormous step in taking a journey halfway around the globe was an awakening adventure.  But my life was completely changed from a life of darkness to light when I came to Perkins. 

      "Upon arrival at Perkins and entering my dorm, the first question I was asked was whether I wanted to live alone or with my father. I told my father that I wanted to live by myself to force myself to learn English. From the next day on, I rolled up my sleeves to learn English, Braille, and sign language at the same time. My father also learned Braille and took courses to acquire new knowledge about how to work with deaf-blind children. I started to see a different world by meeting other students who also were deaf-blind, which encouraged me to adjust to my deaf-blindness. I never imagined that from a village with most of its population living in poverty and illiteracy that there could also be people in similar situations as myself who existed on this earth. The only drawback was that I could not communicate easily with these deaf-blind students because of my limited sign language."

Bapin's father returned to India , leaving  his son under the guardianship of Bapin's English teacher. During Bapin's  years at Perkins and a subsequent year at Gallaudet University , a  liberal arts university in Washington, D.C., Bapin developed a strong interest in helping blind and deaf people . "My enthusiasm to achieve higher education also continued," he said. A few years later he became the first deaf-blind student at the University of Arkansas.  Bapin, who today remains characteristically aggressive about learning new skills,  soon persuaded the university to add  Braille to its computer lab and hire signers to give  lectures.

He was also dealing  with a sadness common to many college students away from home for the first time: He  was lonely , friendless. Though his fellow students were always signaling their willingness to do him a favor, "none of them were willing to go the distance of true friendship, "  Bapin told me.    

One afternoon Bapin went to his dorm room and closed the door. He  began thinking of a boyhood conversation with his Hindu mother about his parents' god  and also  the recent lunch with two teens from a Little Rock church who had told him that  God comes first before anything else. 

Bapin went to his knees to pray, perhaps for the first time in his life. But he soon began doubting the  rectitude of his prayerful behavior. He quickly rose to face the painful dilemma of telling or not telling  his Hindu parents that he was thinking of becoming a Christian.  Then  he was reminded of something else those two teens had told him. Don’t worry about your parents. God will work in their hearts, too. Again Bapin went to his knees . He prayed for a "close friend. " 

"Two Sundays later, " he told me. "I answered an altar call from my church pastor and accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. It changed my  life overnight. There was so much peace. I began to ask God to 'see' and 'hear ' for me."  When informed of his decision, his parents  rejoiced. "I didn't expect that ,! " Bapin exclaimed. He continued to pray hard  to  have  a  "close friend." 

He also prayed that night for the willingness to forgive that boy who had maliciously destroyed his remaining  eye. 

Bapin Graduates and Gets His "Close Friend "

Bapin took his final exams in political science for  his B.A. degree. Stress mounted as he waited for the test results. Being an outstanding student over the past five years  had won him a scholarship from the National  Federation of   the Blind. As he  was sitting one day in  the university cafeteria  eating pizza, an excited  staff member came to him and not-so gently tapped him on the shoulder. Bapin turned around and was told  he would soon have his "close friend " ! It was to be a dog !
Confused and stunned,  Bapin rose from his chair and stood for a long moment to reason how an animal , especially a  dog, can  be a close friend.  The dog was "Chica" , a yellow Labrador retriever .  Unbeknownst to  Bapin,  , news of  his scholarship had caught the attention of the Rochester (Michigan )  Lions Club , one of several thousand clubs of Lions Clubs International (LCI ),  the world's foremost supporters of Leader dogs .  Chica, who would  cost $19,000 to train with Bapin  at the  Leader Dog School for the Blind in Rochester,  was a charitable gift to Bapin. Though this  friend was not exactly what he had prayed for, Chica would be  close and faithful .   
Bapin then was  45. He his head has as a few tufts of black hair, and he tells me he stands   five-feet-four-inches (I soon saw him six-feet tall in courage ). When  he laughs , his  interpreter laughs for him  .What I found most  striking about him  is the speed with which he walks ; it defies  blindness and deafness.  His mind is  unusually swift . An  interpreter told  me "Bapin can read Braille as fast as a secretary can type. "

Master and Dog Train Together

Bapin and "best friend" with  trainer Keith MacGregor

My first encounter with Bapin would become my most memorable. It occurred  in the Leader Dog School dining room . I was there on assignment in 1998 for  LCI's  global magazine, "The Lion."  At eight round tables  sat 22 blind men and women waiting  anxiously and silently to be introduced to  their  new "close friend " for every   night and every day.
One by one, German Shepherds and yellow Labs and black Labs were led in by their trainers and escorted to each individual , including  Bapin, the only blind-deaf student. The  dogs were soon at their masters' feet, where they remained quietly  lying with heads between paws . Hands  began  reaching down and for a head  to stroke. For long moments , the room was quite, as if in respect for  a sacred moment.  One student  grabbed his dog's  harness , and the two  made their  way to a piano and  master began to  play  impromptu a cheerful melody. Sightless eyes moisten.

           The training center  had  evolved from a single farm-house operation in 1939 .  The  military-like  training that would last 24 days for Bapin and Chica and  others began the next day at 6 a.m.;  all dogs were taken to an outdoor run to relieve themselves.  An hour later, a training cadre of  more than a dozen  men and women attired in khaki shorts maneuvered students and dogs out to the 14-acre school complex . Chica and the other dogs had already received  several weeks of preliminary training after an exhaustive screening process that had  began soon after they were whelped by volunteer dog lovers. 

Under the overall direction of the then  school's director Bill Hansen, a retired Air Force colonel, Leader  training begins gently but  with the precision of a military drill . Students and dogs first learn hand signals: "forward," "left," "right," "sit," "down," "stay," and "walk faster." Later, the canines  will learn to guide their masters away from oncoming cars, construction zones and other hazards such as tree branches that overhang sidewalks. Amazingly , each dog  will eventually   acquire "a sense of responsibility" for his or her  master . But more critical—and often painfully  slow— is that master and dog  learn what to expect from each other. 

                    Trusting Is the Final Test  
Before a Leader dog can be released to its new owner, both it and the owner must pass a final test. What neither Bapin nor I learned until a climatic training moment arrived was  the paramount  importance of trusting one's Leader dog. 

I kept my eye on Bapin and Chica as both strained to  coordinate  their movements . Other students ( none were deaf )  relied on listening to their trainer's  voice commands,  but Bapin was forced to react quite fast to read the sign language which his trainer , Keith MacGregor , communicated to him by  pressing  hard and often on Bapin's palm as if it were a notebook. On  one   particular day, a substitute trainer for Bapin was called in because MacGregor's shoulder was in much  pain due to the prolonged downward  force he had to use to "write" with his fingers on Bapin's palm. I was told that MacGregor then was likely the world's only guide dog trainer skilled in tactile signing. 

            I asked MacGregor , " Does Chica know that Bapin is blind ?"

            "I  believe that Leader dogs know something is different about someone who can't see," he replied.   Wrote Melissa Holbrook Pierson, author of the book  The Secret History of Kindness: Learning from How Dogs Learn ,  " Though dogs have been our best friends for tens of thousands of  years, they still read us far more skillfully than we read them. "

Bapin and Chica and the others closed their training day with a lecture at 8 p.m. Everyone rested  on Sunday; some students went to church,  but without their dogs.  

***

     Six days into the training, while Bapin and I were "talking" via his  Telebraille ,  Bapin begins to frown. He is obviously worried. He tells me: " I took the college exams ten days ago and do not know if I passed. " As he begins another sentence, the Telebraille malfunctions. Bapin has a moment of angry panic, wondering how long his voice medium will take to repair.  I was about to tell him of a major crisis now developing , but now I hadn't  the heart.   MacGregor had told me at lunch  that he had been noticing Chica was sometimes refusing to lead , now  causing  Bapin to doubt Chica's  ability to lead him. " Truth is, he mistakenly expects his dog to walk in a straight line like a robot and never to pause to sniff something," MacGregor told me. He  speculated—but hadn't yet told Bapin—that Chica might be over-reacting to the strangeness she senses from human deafness.  Solving this problem is urgent,  he said ,  because  both dog and master  now face being dropped from the training  program.  

                 Two days later , MacGregor approaches me shaking his head. "You won't believe this," he said.  " Chica is Bapin's very first experience with any dog! . My guess is that  bonding with a dog is emotionally alien to this  young man from Indian . " 
    MacGregor confronted Bapin with this issue but the insight had come too late. Chica was dismissed and , according to program  policy, would not ever be  considered again for Leader dog training.  I visited Bapin in his room that night. "I was hit hard and I miss her," he said. "I was slow to understand what a relationship to a dog really means .  I had never felt this kind of emotion for an animal. I found myself loving her, yet I didn't keep a balance between this love and her need for discipline."  

My friend was obviously crestfallen yet exuding an indomitable spirit that defied his awesome handicap.  

            News came the next day that Bapin had passed his final college exams. "I tried to be happy, but could not," he said. Between 1993 and 1998 ,  the university had presented him with five various service  awards .

The Final Test:  Either Trust  Each Other or  You're Both Out 

 MacGregor persuaded director Bill Hansen to give  Bapin  another opportunity . Bapin waxed joyous when he was introduced to Dinah, a 21-month-old, 64-pound yellow Lab . She had been diligently raised and then  returned here  three months ago by a member of the school's volunteer puppy-raising program .

Master and Leader Dog  "Dinah"take a walk in Rochester, Michigan

       

  Dinah and Bapin worked well together , though the vital bonding process took longer than the normal ten days because Dinah could not hear any voice command from her master. Graduation would require Bapin and Dinah to pass a final test that proved the two of them could work with mutual trust. For Dinah, this would require her to obey all commands riveted to her by  MacGregor , her trainer,  and by Bapin, her master . For Bapin, whom I knew could be  head-strong,   deferring to a dog's sense of correctness rather than his own  could be a monumental challenge . 

         On the day of the test,  I drive  from my home  near Chicago to be with  Bapin.  MacGregor, Bapin, Dinah, and I converge on a Saturday afternoon at a traffic-laden street corner in downtown Rochester . We are tense, but not I notice, is  Dinah , though I suspect she  is sensing  something extra-doggy is about to happen. "This trust thing ," MacGregor says opening his van door for Bapin and Dinah,   "can be  a life or death issue when,  for example, both are about to cross a busy  street intersection  when their instincts  are  demanding different behaviors.  Trust can be difficult enough for a blind person, but for a person who is also deaf, it sometimes seems impossible.

        He and I exchange anxious glances while observing Bapin and Dinah  navigating  through pedestrians  down a sidewalk towards another  busy intersection where the test will occur. We stand still. I hear MacGregor again  mumble to himself that he  will have to fail both Bapin and Dinah if they can't develop  this mutual trust. "This guy Bapin is a very independent dude," he mumbles for the second time.    

So far , all is going well; Dinah skirts his master around an overhanging, curbside tree branch. The two of them  now halt at the corner  curb. MacGregor has purposely not told Bapin that the pedestrian crossing for this intersection, unlike the right angle crossing on which they had been  trained to cross, that  this one must be followed diagonally across the street ,from corner to corner.  

           Rochester townspeople are used to seeing blind pedestrians and their Leader dogs and will  often help them cross streets . But   not today. 
      MacGregor and I wait  about a hundred feet away from Bapin and Dinah. Bapin gives the  go-ahead tug on Dinah's halter,   commanding her to proceed straight ahead, not  to enter the diagonal pedestrian crossing . Dinah refuses to obey her master's command and  tugs to the right, towards the diagonal crossing. ( "We want our dogs to use 'intelligent disobedience' , stubborn enough to say no when necessary, " a Leader trainer will later tell me. ) Bapin firmly pulls Dinah back. I see  MacGregor wince at this clash of wills . Night and day for more than three weeks he has  invested all his training skills to win this test  for  Bapin and Dinah.   

A scene from a day ago flashes before me: It’s Bapin and Dinah taking a nap together on Bapin's bed. I now look at Bapin and ask: Has he  again , as with  Chica, failed to discipline his affection for a dog?  ?

Dinah tugs twice more to her right. "Damn it," MacGregor exclaims, " he believes  Dinah is confused. He thinks he's got to  do the leading ! "

Our eyes stay on Bapin , who seems frozen in an  inexpressible thought.  Then, being  the professional Leader dog she is ,  Dinah moves forward into the  diagonal crossing. 
 Bapin   follows her .  

The  conclusion of this two-part

report will be posted two weeks

from now. Bapin falls in love
with a woman, gives lectures
and  manages a business.

All comments are welcome.

rrschwarz7@wowway.com

© 2015,2020 Robert R. Schwarz