Our father, Thakur Vishva Narain Singh, was a writer and a journalist. As the first-ever Braille editor in India, he helped usher the visua...
Our father, Thakur Vishva Narain Singh, was a writer and a journalist. As the first-ever Braille editor in India, he helped usher the visually impaired into the world of reading. His translations of entire manuscripts into Braille gave the visually impaired access to both Indian and foreign literature. For us, his three daughters, he brought home an endless supply of books every month. He never refused to buy us books and made sure we learned to experience the world through words.
I remember how well my father could tell a story, holding a listener’s attention until the last word had been spoken. A wonderful raconteur, no conversation he initiated was ever boring, and no library that he knew of was never short of books.
After my father’s death, we wanted to pay tribute to a man who had touched so many lives during his lifetime. But as we got off the Mussoorie Express on an early morning in 2010, armed with backpacks full of books, we never thought that this journey would become an annual affair. For us, it was a trip to reclaim a part of our identity, to pay tribute and forge our own alliance with Dehradun. It was a transition...
