CHENNAI: On Sunday morning, the parking lot at Savera Hotel was filled with 100-odd cars. Not unusual for a busy hotel in the middle of the city, you might think. But on this day, there was more to it than travelling businessmen and weekend brunches. The hotel was once again playing host to the annual Car Rally for the Blind — the 31st one at that.
In an effort to further inclusivity and provide a fun sporting opportunity for the visually impaired, the National Association for the Blind (NAB) and Madras Motor Sports Club, in association with O2 Health Studio, have been hosting this annual ritual. This year around, there were 113 participants — a good mix of old-timers and new enthusiasts. The task at hand was simple: each car had a blind person as the navigator who received a list of directions in Braille during the flag-off. They were to guide the driver in completing the route assigned to them and report back to the venue within a given time period. Trust, communication and coordination were key.
Actor Aadhi Pinisetty, who flagged off the rally, said, “The navigator has something to do; racing against time, they have a set of rules to be followed and a competition. That emotion that the person is going through is something you cannot buy. That is (the) practical (result of this effort).” In the 31 years of its running, the rally has been a largely volunteer-driven engagement with people from all corners of the city coming together to make this effort a success. But there’s more.
“Our aim is to bring new, young people in. Some of us get old and jaded, no? So it’s always nice to have young people take an interest in the sport for we want the next generation to carry it forward,” she says.
Going forward, there are ideas about taking the rally-based friendship a notch further, she notes. “We could take it to another destination. It could also be ‘travel with your companion’ — then you get to know each other a little more. Maybe even just up to Puducherry, have dinner with them and return. Something like that would be exciting, you know. We’re looking at that,” she said.
For the blind
When it concerns matters of inclusivity, everything counts, notes Aadhi. The NAB also agrees to this idea of inclusivity. Its president Nina Reddy points out that the association is ‘for’ the blind, specifically so to offer inclusivity for the blind in every sphere.