Fifty-year-old Pushpa Patil boards the train every day, relying on her soft and melodious voice as she belts out songs in a bid to earn a living. (Express Photo By Pavan Khengre)

It is this very group who have given Vangani the dubious distinction of being the “village of the blind” even though their number does not even make up one per cent of the total population. Just 130 of them are voters. This number is also why they remain almost untouched by the election frenzy even when the entire country is caught in the heat of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. No politician has come asking for their votes or demands though both exist.

Fifty-year-old Pushpa Patil boards the train every day, relying on her soft and melodious voice as she belts out songs in a bid to earn a living, while her husband weaves chairs back home. Most of the combined earnings of this completely blind couple go towards the rent they pay and the money they send to their 18-year-old son who stays in Pune with Pushpa’s sister and studies at a junior college there.

Prahlad Bhagat, 35, and his wife Namisha Bhagat, 32, who hail from Nagpur were trained as masseurs at a school for the blind in Tardeo. Every day, they travel to Dadar in Mumbai where they earn about Rs 500-700 a day from clients. But after paying their rent and bills, and sending money to their son who lives with Prahlad’s parents in Nagpur, the two are left with almost nothing. “If we are asked what we want the most, it is a house of our own. Ninety per cent of the blind who live in Vangani live on rent,” says Namisha who intends to go to Nagpur with Prahlad on polling day to cast their votes because of the progress the town, where their son lives, has seen.

Ironically, it was the promise of a home of their own made by a local politician, Ravi Patil, in 1998 that made about 250 blind families move to Vangani from various parts of the state. But before he could start the project, Patil was killed and with him the hopes of all these families too died. Yet spurred on by friends and families already here, more visually impaired people continued to migrate to Vangani, attracted by the lower cost of living and proximity to Mumbai even though the main pull has remained unfulfilled even after 25 years.

Prahlad Bhagat, 35, and his wife Namisha Bhagat, 32, who hail from Nagpur were trained as masseurs at a school for the blind in Tardeo. (Express photo by Pavan Khengre)

Yet there are glimmers of hope. As you move into the interiors of the town, a pink structure called Building 16 stands testimony to a slow but sure change. It has 16 two-room apartments, all given to visually impaired families. A collaboration of the CSR initiative of the Bank of America with Habitat of Humanity on land donated by a local leader-cum-builder, the building was given to visually impaired families on payment of Rs 1 lakh each in 2018.

“Today it is worth Rs 7-8 lakh but they cannot sell it for 20 years. This is because we want them to think long-term for the future of their children,” says Prasad Parab of Parab Developers. He adds that he would be happy doing this project on a larger scale, bringing all the blind people in Vangani together if someone would donate the land.

The happy voices of children – all of whom have full vision – that fill the building also give an indication of a better tomorrow. All of them study at the zila parishad school and dream of a brighter future. “I want to become a doctor,” says 11-year-old Megha who sits with her father Ankush Padture at the Sai Chawl nearby, dominated by visually impaired families.

Padture beams with pride as he says that he is not a tenant but an owner of his two-room abode that he bought for Rs 2.5 lakh, saving every penny for the last two decades. A Class 10 pass who speaks English, Padture migrated from Latur in 2006 and after losing his job as a technician, now hawks goods on trains for a livelihood. A task made easier over the last few years thanks to the construction of a foot overbridge – a long-standing demand of the visually impaired community who earlier had to cross the tracks to reach the station, at great peril to their lives.

“Today it may be a house, but back then safety was the prime need of these people,” says Atul Jaiswal who in 2013 worked with the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) and actively advocated for the foot overbridge. He has since migrated to Ottawa but continues to be in touch with the ground reality at Vangani. “It is a unique village with a community of those with sight-loss. In a country of 1.3 billion, the vote of 130 people may not count, but their resilience does,” says Jaiswal.

This resilience is what made the community survive a crisis like Covid-19. “No one could pay rent; people lived in constant fear of eviction. We coped with the help of donors, organisations that visited us, and by helping each other out,” says Padture as he and his daughter proceed to a small tenement nearby and unlock the door where Jyoti Shinde, 24, sits alone on a cot.

The lead singer of Vangani’s blind orchestra, Jyoti has been bedridden the last few months following a fall on the tracks that broke her hip. Blind since birth and with no family, she came here from Satara five years ago to sing and stayed on. “I am waiting for my operation now after which I will resume work. In the meantime, the neighbours check on me through the day and bring me meals since I can’t cook anymore,” says the woman, who also hopes to vote in the coming elections like many of the other residents of the chawl, even though they have never seen a candidate turn up there.

It was the promise of a home of their own made by a local politician, Ravi Patil, in 1998 that made about 250 blind families move to Vangani from various parts of the state. (Express Photo By Pavan Khengre)

“So what? It’s our right to vote,” says Sambhaji Badar, founder of the National Federation of the Visually Impaired that fights for the rights of the blind in Vangani who receive no government grant, except for the 25 kg of subsidised grain on their ration cards and a Rs 1,500 monthly grant from the Sanjay Gandhi Niradhar scheme.

“The officials help, the collector, the tahsildar, etc. The politicians do not really meet us. But the government has included braille on EVMs. It is a recognition of our vote, isn’t it?” asks Badar.

As one gets up to leave, Jyoti – clutching her mobile, her only link to the world outside the room – offers to sing her favourite song. Long after leaving the dry, dusty lanes of Vangani, her beautiful voice continues to reverberate, “Ae mere watan ke logon, zara aankh mein bhar lo paani…”