India hosts car rally for the blind

The Bihar chapter of National Association for the Blind (NAB) hosted a car rally for visually challenged people at Patna, capital city of India's eastern state of Bihar on Sunday. This is for the first time that a car rally for visually challenged people was organized in Bihar. Even though, the visually challenged participants were not driving cars, they acted as the navigators and directed the drivers with the help of route maps, which were charted out in Braille script. And among the drivers were many ophthalmologists. Fifteen visually challenged persons participated in the rally that ended at Danapur on the outskirts of Patna. The participants were happy to participate in a car rally. I am feeling very good. I feel that by participating in such a programme, we can reach anywhere by guiding the driver, said Upendra Kumar, a visually challenged participant in the car rally. On their part, the functionaries of the NAB mentioned that they had held counselling sessions to mentally prepare the visually challenged persons to take part in this maiden Special Car Rally. We have counselled them a lot, spoken to them, made them understand about the car rally. Many rounds of talks took place and then we organised an interaction with other participants. Many doctors also chip in to make this programme a success, noted Lilly Gupta, a functionary of National Association for the Blind, Bihar Chapter. The NAB is planning to hold more of such events including an expedition to one of the peaks in the Himalayan range.