HI all This enthralling topic of discussion has also obliged me to put my thought across. I am still bachelor though, however, would like to give a few points from my own observation. Well, I think initially the main subject of this discussion was weather a sighted person gets interested to be married with a non-sighted partner? But steadily the theme appears to be divided in two part of the discussion, one is whether sighted prefers a blind partner (what happens in the current scenario) and 2nd, whether a blind person look ahead to seek a sighted partner.
Well, undoubtedly people with disabilities, in particular to people with vision impairment have been now equally contributing to the society and today the blind folks are really found smart, active and independent in almost all aspect of the life, be it personal, social or professional life what so ever. However, the another irrefutable fact is that in spite of being on the front in most of the aspects today, people with vision impairment confront a huge hurdle in many areas and marriage is one of the main facets where we people face the challenges while choosing a life partner. Now factually what happens: sighted people happen to be our friends easily and they also join us in most of the time in office or Schools/Colleges but when it comes to marriage, sighted people do not prefer to get married with a blind boy or girl. A bitter truth is that no work is done altruistically in this world and a large number of sighted people understand the disability, specially blindness as a huge Burdon in spite of knowing the abilities of the visually impaired. Tell me, how many private employers employ the blind employees despite of seeing the blind well working in other organizations? This is just an example. There might be several other areas where the people with blindness are not accepted even with good abilities or qualities. Similarly in the matter of marriage, visually challenge guys and girls are not considered by the sighted easily and comprehensively. I would not deject anyone to marry with a sighted partner, even I am also not sure for myself whether I am going to get married with a sighted or blind but what all I can say from my little experience that largely marriage between a blind or sighted is more or less a compromise and negotiation between the two hearts. Call it a luck or whatever may it be, but the fact is that all the smarts, active or self-independent guys or girls do not get the sighted life partner who could be stand equally in professional or social status. I have a wide network of the sighted people, I have done all my schooling and college from the mainstream, I have been working in the corporate sector with my sighted counterparts and, this is what I have experienced in being with the sighted. Some time if the girl or boy is ready to marry with us, their. parents do not allow them to do so. I was working in my previous office where a sighted friend of mine herself expressed her views with me if I can marry to her. Paradoxically I actually do not wanted to marry her and I didn't say or no that time. After couple of days, I had come to know that her parents were not ready for this proposal. Well this is just an example about how parents do not get ready at most of the junctures and a blind person cannot always accept a sighted person as a life partner. Both sighted or non-sighted have their own choices or priorities. If you wish to get married with a sighted one, make the efforts for that, and if you wish to marry with a blind partner, put your efforts for that. It's a matter of your own priority, as simple as that. If some people think that sighted would come and fall in love with us and then get married, well I would again say that even the so called love is not done unselfishly these days. I cannot be persuaded by a very few incomparable and exceptional examples where blind have got a equal sighted life partner who matches with maximum compatibility. Another fact is visually impaired people want to marry with the sighted partner also because of the security and so on. Many of our experts have said here while adding to this discussion that 'we blind people are not lesser than sighted today in all aspect,' I too agree here and this is what I've also written in the above lines, but then my question to those people that why you or a blind person need to seek a sighted life partner when you feel that the visually impaired are no where less significant than the sighted people? Perhaps simply because you or some of us have a small qualm somewhere in the corner of the mind or heart about the capabilities of the blind. Exactly in a similar manner, some time sighted people know our good qualities and they also revere us for that, but do not show that courage to get married with the blind. Well I feel mostly points have been well covered in this topic by many of us. At the end I would just say actually 'marriage is not a thing to do, it is a thing to be happened!' and, if the marriages are made in the heaven, then why to be worried? Yes, such discussion has it's own importance and it should be. I believe we need to lug this dialogue on the forums where the sighted people are also equally active. Hopefully it would have a positive impact on both the sides from the marriage point of view. Warm regards, Amit Bhatt Sr. Software Accessibility Testing engineer - QA Infotech pvt. Ltd. http://www.qainfotech.net Moderator - SayEverything, an international mailing list dedicated to people with cross disabilities http://www.sayeverything.org Skype: amitbhattindia FB: facebook.com/amit.bhatt.52643 M: 91 9560175887 "A player makes a team great is more valuable than a great player." Register at the dedicated AccessIndia list for discussing accessibility of mobile phones / Tabs on: http://mail.accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/mobile.accessindia_accessindia.org.in Search for old postings at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ To unsubscribe send a message to [email protected] with the subject unsubscribe. To change your subscription to digest mode or make any other changes, please visit the list home page at http://accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/accessindia_accessindia.org.in Disclaimer: 1. Contents of the mails, factual, or otherwise, reflect the thinking of the person sending the mail and AI in no way relates itself to its veracity; 2. AI cannot be held liable for any commission/omission based on the mails sent through this mailing list..
