Forget the parallels that are drawn between blindness and being blindfolded. They are useless. They are useless because prior to being blindfolded you had vision and every stimulus you receive after being blindfolded is, naturally, going to be translated into a mental representation of the physical manifestation of the stimulus. If you touched a rose the concept in your head would be a very visual one. People who are vision-impaired from birth have no such frame of reference. A more apt analogy would be two people speaking completely different languages. A person who has learnt only Japanese all his/her life thinks differently from someone who has grown up on English. They think in different languages and they will never truly be able to communicate their ideas completely to each other.

You learn the subtleties of human communication as you spend more time with Nikita. Your feedback mechanism, comprising mainly nodding heads and other non-verbal gestures, is ineffective here. While you would interrupt a normal-vision person with merely a gesture you need to time yourself perfectly to put forth your questions to her. And while she would never know it you dare not look away as she speaks. Turning away and speaking is a strict no-no.

She is impeccably turned out. You ask her about her appearance. I am very particular about dressing. I have fixed ideas about what would look good on me. When I go out everything, from my shoes to my hairclip - and handbag and mobile cover, is matching. If sighted people’s clothes do not match they are called trendy. If my clothes do not match they would say she could not manage it because she is blind.

You interrupt her. How do you manage to match your clothes? I take someone shopping with me. I buy fixed colours because I believe they look good on me or so I have been told by people. Colours? Nikita, what are colours to you? I know Maroon is a dark colour. I know Pink is bright and not suited to every occasion. I have heard people talk of Red as aggressive. White is calm. Black is dark; the colour of the night.

To her you are just another interviewer. She has been through this rigmarole enough number of times in the past. She brings you the file of certificates that she knows will provide you with a lot of material. Awards in oration, singing, event-organisation, distinction in Marketing, Economics, Production & Quality Management and Accounting abound. Surely you will paint her as the conqueror of all odds. No doubt. But that would be to reduce her to a concept. It would be too simple and it would be too superficial. It would also be an insult to Nikita Vaid.

You wait as she attends to an SMS on her phone. The software she uses announces a new SMS and the sender and then reads out the SMS to her at speeds that make it completely unintelligible to the untrained ear. She laughs when you point it out. She slows down the playback speed and lets you in on the joke. She composes a reply by hitting the keys and having the software read out the relevant letters.

Nikita is currently pursuing her Bachelors in Management Studies. She informs you that she is the first student of her kind to pursue this degree from the Bombay University. Surely she had problems. Initially the University refused to let me take the entrance test. Refusing to be relegated to the stereotype of a Bachelor’s in Music I argued my case vehemently. The Director agreed to interview me and I took the test after clearing the interview. I was allowed a reader but there were no other considerations shown to me. The time limit was sacrosanct and the biggest hurdle were the visual reasoning questions. There is only so much a reader can do in describing shapes and patterns in a limited time. I took a chance with those and randomly marked my answers. Thankfully, there was no negative marking. God knows how I will clear the CAT. They promised to normalise my scores to factor out the visual reasoning part but, as far as I know, nothing like that happened.

I applied to the Mulund College of Commerce. The Dean refused. I asked for a chance to prove myself and I am pretty sure I have done that. I have been in the top three of my class for the first five semesters and I am looking forward to the results of the sixth, albeit with a little trepidation. Trepidation? Why? Well, we have a subject called Quantitative Methods for Management and it involved a lot of data manipulation and Linear Programming problems, neither of which I can see. The last thing I wanted to do was rely on the writer but I had no choice.

The SSC in Maharashtra allows for vision-impaired students to study Mathematics only till the Seventh standard level. The syllabus for the subsequent classes involves algebra and geometry, neither of which the SSC is equipped or willing to teach these students. Nikita worries how she will clear the CAT without these skills. I will give the CAT a miss, I guess. Probably just take the CET. I want to do my MBA in HR from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences. I am already doing my diploma in HRM from Welingkars.

How do you cope with classes? Isn’t instruction quite visually oriented? No, most professors tend to dictate notes which helps. I thought about using my Braille typewriter but it is too noisy and would have disturbed the rest of the class. So how do you get notes? There is a lot of redundancy involved. I listen in class but sit idle and work overtime to get the notes later. Most professors give their notes in electronic format which I can use on the computer. The others I transcribe from my friends’ notes.

You are intrigued when she mentions computers. How exactly do you use the computer? She shows you. She switches the machine on. While you wait for the monitor to light up Nikita is busy tapping away at the keys and listening to what her machine is saying - again, at super-speed. The software on the computer works a lot like the one on her phone and reads out everything on her screen. To her the mouse and the monitor are useless and she controls everything from the keyboard. Before you know it she has checked her e-mail, typed a few responses and started chatting with multiple friends through her messenger. Audio is our main sensory perception. My computer, cell-phone, watch and calculator; all talk to me. I even have an mp3-player-cum-voice-recorder that I want to use to record lectures in class but the one I have has an on-screen display which is of no use to me. It is time to restart her phone and computer. She explains: the software I use for the phone and computer are, both, trial versions. The phone software expires after ten minutes and the screen reader on the computer lasts forty minutes. They are, both, too expensive to purchase. I have no choice but to follow this convoluted procedure.

Nikita’s mother brings us some snacks. You ask her how raising Nikita has been different from raising her two elder daughters. For the longest time we did not realise that she could not see. All we noticed was that she would look to the ceiling a lot and every time we brought her outdoors she would squint her eyes. It was only after forty days that we took her to the doctor and he told us that she was completely unable to see. We had no choice but to accept God’s decree. We have not had to raise her very differently. The only difference, perhaps, is that we have put greater stress on her being self-reliant. Tomorrow she will have to do her chores herself. She should be able to cope, come what may. And she has turned out fine, hasn’t she?

Nikita has a visitor - a friend from college. As they chat and gossip you cannot help but ask the question. Boys? They giggle. Shh! Let Mom go. As you shift to another room she tells you what she looks for in a guy. Surprisingly, it is no different from what other girls her age are looking for. Marriage? In time, but only to a guy who understands. Of course there are going to be times when I need his help. He must understand my situation and support me.

How much does she need to depend on other people? Hardly. It is only now that the National Association for the Blind is making me undergo mobility training that I need to learn to depend on others. I resent mobility training, I hate the red and white cane and I hate asking people for help. I could do all of it on my own so why do I need the cane to advertise the fact that I cannot see? I have my car and my driver. I can get along just fine. Yes, Nikita, but what of when you don’t have these amenities? They are also teaching me to cook. The microwave is a real help. The only trouble is that the control panel on the microwave is flat and the buttons are not tactile. I have solved that problem, though. She leads you to the kitchen and you cannot help but admire her ingenuity. Mom’s bindis have been put over the buttons and she uses this arrangement to control the oven. My niece loves playing with the bindis and she always manages to mess up the arrangement but it is my best bet.