3: Free Fall...

He could feel the air around him, and the silence was a rush by itself. There he was hanging off the edge of the opening of that small plane, ready to take the biggest plunge of his life, jump 15000ft, and experience life, as all the brochures had put it! They had been through the security instructions easily a hundred times, but Raghav had heard enough, he had been waiting a while for this sky diving experience and he wanted to rely on his instincts to guide him through it! He was not one to over think anything; in fact his friends would go as far as to say, he never thought through much at all. He was not reckless or irresponsible, but he was daring and energetic …all wrapped up into one slightly overweight, average height twenty one year old. This was his year off, he was taking a break in between his course, his undergraduate degree in human psychology and animal behavior, much to the dismay of his parents, but he said he needed this to get an idea of what he was supposed to do with his life after this degree. He knew this was rubbish, he even knew if someone else were giving him that same story he would have laughed at them so hard, before he proceeded to discourage them from such an idea. But Raghav was sure, he needed this. He had been studying human behavior and intelligence patterns when he had come to this decision one day.. He was getting so saturated, in over his head with theory after flawed theory that he needed to get out of his head and ‘live’ a bit.

So there he was, doing the thing that action and travel books were made off and before he made his way back home to India, he was going to have two wild weeks in the US, where he had come to study and ‘prosper’.

Sky diving was number five on the list. He had already done the first four! He had eaten sushi, this was a big deal because he was a strict vegetarian and had gotten a piercing, his eyebrow, nothing that creepy, and had climbed a lesser known hill, and roughed it out in the wilderness for five days. Again not a big deal for the average person. Except, Raghav was blind...

He had been since he was four years old, and had handled his ‘challenge’ with maturity and a great attitude. Very few people even remembered he was blind, and hardly anyone would show him the kind of pity that was usually handed out to people with such disabilities. Raghav had been an interesting and interested learner through school and although difficult to survive in mainstream schools in India, he had managed, and well. His parents were both working individuals and had done the best thing they could for their son, not make his disability the focus, the beginning and end of a normal life. Raghav had taken up psychology as his key interest and had always been very good at what appeared to be hearing ‘body language’. It was true that where you lost one sense, the others heightened, and Raghav had a natural ability.

He was taking this year off, to improve his skills, he said. He was going back home, and was planning on travelling through India to study ‘study patterns’ and general behavioral patterns of children between the ages of 9-15… among other things. But mostly he was taking the advice of a dear friend. One who had come to stay with him and his family three years ago, at his house, and had been the sister and friend he had never had. Mali-akka, sounding almost like Malika, had been one of the many reasons he took up psychology. She fascinated him and angered him all at once! She was the only person Raghav envied for having her eyesight and was amazed at how she could tell him a story or take him on walks near the beach with Saibu (the family’s pet) and describe every sight with details that would have never been noticed by anyone with eyesight, or teach him something new.. Like how to sculpt clay into any form he ‘saw’ in his mind. She had come at a time, when Raghav needed to be reminded that anger was not an answer. He had always been patient with himself, but at the time he was going through a slightly harder period at school with his disability and she had come almost as if to help him.

The day she left she gave Raghav a clay sculpture she had made... It was shaped like a pyramid, with grooves across its surface, and coloured threads wound around it. She said it represented the colours he could not see, but would learn to ‘feel’, and when ever he felt he was ready to feel them, and to experience being able to see them, that he should find her. The pyramid like figure was him, bound by what he longed to see, but what he could not, and how that thought was limiting him! She had said, he only had to write to her and she would take good care of him. At the time, he was a bit skeptical. The concept was too abstract, but he held that gift in his hand, and felt it against his skin, and knew that this would be with him for life.

And so now three years later, when he was struggling to be the best he could be, and not quite being able to tell why, he remembered Mali’s gift. He had written to her and sure enough she was ready to meet him, and check on her dear 'brother', and help him...

Raghav counted to ten… and jumped! He could not even feel the man strapped on and helping him… he gave into the experience… and let the feeling take over him. What a rush!