Dare2Stare Challenge

Watch this video first, a part of Dr. Agarwal’s Eye Hospital Dare2Stare Challenge.

With this beautiful video which playfully disturbs us out of our comfort zones and shakes our conscience, Dr. Agarwal’s Eye Hospital is doing something new; something important. It is asking us to see the world in general and eye donation in particular with new eyes and a fresh perspective. Making us play the game from our childhoods ‘Who blinks first’ with the woman in the video, and then stirring us “awake” to a reality we did not realize, hits the nail where it is supposed to – in our hearts.  But then, what next?

There is a sea of unawareness to be crossed first. Did you know?  More than 2.5 lakh blind people could benefit from corneal transplants from donated eyes. Data from the Union Health Ministry revealed that more than 50 per cent of eyes donated in 2014 had gone to waste due to infections or delay of collection. It’s time for change, not just to wake up to the ‘challenge’ of becoming an eye donor but also to know more about it. Go Dare2Stare.

There are three things I would do to change the way I see the world:

1. I am looking within, to keep in touch with what I believe in and what I think I stand for. With times such as ours, it is so difficult to lose one’s sense of being … oneself. If the world is real, so must I be. It is only in relation to my true self that I can view the world in its truest colours. Every evening I spend some time with myself, introspecting and looking back at the day’s happenings – the hits and misses, the joys and clouds of gloom. To understand what could be different. Need not be different. Must be done different. I look within to understand the world without, and its people, and hence to feel kinship and empathy. 

2. I am paying all the attention I can to what my child thinks of the world that surrounds him. His sight is my sight, his ear my sound beats. Whether it is to use my imagination as an escape from the mundane in the children’s park or to take his perspective on ‘good’ and ‘bad’ in a KG class and revise my moral bearings which may be ancient, already. We need to grow up as we grow old, and I want to with what my child has to see and say about the world. To keep my world view updated is to keep myself a relevant guide in my child’s eyes.

3. I am doing so myself, and I am requesting everyone reading this to take the Dare2Stare challenge. Take a pledge! It is important to share what is no longer of any use to us, but which may not just mean the world to another but even help them see the world. Your eyes. 

Register as a donor today. It takes nothing!

[This is a sponsored campaign review.]