Rubberdust

She witnessed her first and only friend, Anuj, becoming blind in the third grade in elementary school. She felt sorry , even guilty not deter him sprinkling the rubberdust on Karan's head whenever he was passing by. On the contrary, she enjoyed watching the scene. In the classroom, both of them were eager to produce the rubberdust for fun, storing it in her desk drawer. Almost half of the space was filled up with it. After she mixed up with the dust of the color pencil, she began to powder it on Karan's head. He was screaming like an animal after rubbing his eyes. Watching his bloodshot eyes, she realized the rubberdust would harm eyes.Because of his visual impairment, Anuj began to hit his head on the classroom door, screaming all the time. It was very natural for her to suspect the rubberdust damaged his eyes. Feeling sorry for him was revealed in her drawing. “She draws MinnieMouse again and again, but with mustaches and batlike teeth.” Since Anuj had to attend the special school, she could not see him anymore but feel sorry remained in her heart throughout her life.In the fourth grade, she read Mohandas Gandi's words in the geographic textbook. “Recall the face of the poorest and weakest man whom you may have seen, and ask yourself if the step you contemplate is going to be if any use to him.” Reading them and writing them repeatedly she could get tranquility gradually. By the chance, she learned Gandi was a racist. The fact seemed to be a big scratch on his image, tarnishing his reputation despite being one of the most reputable and honorable men in the world. How could we understand it? It seemed to be a kind of human fragility tempting to be sided by prejudice. In the third grade, although Karan endured enormous pain, the teacher did not punish her. As a matter of fact, neither his classmates nor the teachers liked him. He seemed to be a victim of discrimination since he was stinky and poor. “She locked herself in the cupboard and pinches her legs all over.”It's a sort of self-punishment to relieve herself from the painful feeling of sorry for him.“Please listen, I grew up in the place that I can not return to. When I search for the old house on Google Maps, it says Result Not Found. Shake me and past rattle like broken circuitry.”The information could lead her to be reminiscent of her friend becoming blind. Waking up in the middle of the night, she was as anxious as sweating heavily while writing a story for her writing group. The title was “The Nature of Evil, The Nature of Good.” Maybe someone would set down, clear and loud at the start, editing the title. “ The first friend I ever made went blind.”Remembering the self-punishment in the third grade, she expected someone would pinch her or punch her with the new title since she believed editing the title by someone else would be more effective and efficient than doing it by herself when she hoped to relieve herself from inflicting memory while sharing her story.It would be more engrossed in reading when we noticed a game- changer in the story. In the third grade, she and Anuj used to go to the schoolyard during recess. He was so playful that he ever challenged watching the sun with the naked eyes whenever they went out . The eyes must be impacted by excessive ultraviolet. Degeneration of the screen deep inside of the eyes would diminish the capacity of receiving the images of the eye vision. It seemed to be obvious that becoming blind was nothing to do with the rubberdust. It's time for us to feel sorry for her suffering from the misunderstanding of her friend's misfortune. It's loud and clear that she might cry for him but not for herself. She believed the truth, seeing was believing. So did we. Unfolding the truth with irony was a hidden gem. WRITTEN BY SARAH THANKAM MATHEWS: DECEMBER 6 2021: CHI B KANG