<B>By Kaviraj SOHUR</B>

Once on a visit to friends at Trou-d’Eau-Douce, I felt uplifted by a line from Helen Keller (1880-1968) - “Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.” - in a picture frame on the wall of their living room. Who was Helen Keller?

She was blind and deaf with a severe speech problem at 18 months following a terrible illness. But she did not lose hope : nothing stopped her from realising what she stated above. She became one of the happiest and most famous women in the world.

For her birthday today, it is a fitting tribute to give some highlights of her great life. She was born in Tuscumbia, Alabama, USA on 27th June 1880 and passed away on 1st June 1968. She was an author and educator; her education and training are an outstanding exploit in the education for the blind and the deaf.

The whole adventure started in 1886 after her mother Kate Keller had gone through Charles Dickens’ American notes. Having read about the successful education of Laura Bridgman, another deaf / blind girl, she rushed to a specialist doctor in Baltimore, who helped her contact the local expert, Alexander Graham Bell. Helen’s parents were advised to call at the Perkins Institute for the Blind in Boston, Massachusetts, where Bridgman had been educated. The school entrusted Helen’s education to Miss Anne Sullivan, a 20-year old teacher and former student, herself with impaired vision.

Because of her disabilities, Helen had become a spoilt girl. With her parents’ permission, Miss Sullivan separated her from the family in a small house in their garden for the sake of discipline. Her first lesson in communication was when Miss Sullivan ran cool water over her palm from a pump by making motions on it to symbolise the idea of “water”.

At the age of ten, Helen was told the story of Ragnhild Kaata, a blind/deaf Norwegian girl who had learnt to speak. Motivated by her success, Helen was eager to learn to speak. Miss Sullivan could teach Helen to speak by touching the lips and throat of others as they speak (Tadoma method) along with “finger-spelling” alphabetical characters on her palm. Afterwards, she learned to speak English, French, German and Latin in Braille.

Accompanied by Miss Sullivan, Helen attended the Perkins School for the Blind before going to Wright Humason School for the Deaf in New York City. Back in Massachusetts, Helen entered the Cambridge School for Young Ladies and was then admitted to Radcliffe College. At 24, she graduated from Radcliffe with honours and became the first blind and deaf person to graduate from a college. Still at Radcliffe, Helen started writing, using the Braille system. Besides The story of my life, she wrote 11 other books and many papers on blindness, deafness, among others.

In addition to her varied activities and interests, she toured the world to convey her message of hope especially to those who are blind and deaf-blind. Thanks to her unbeatable spirit, Helen Keller’s life really was a daring adventure, a message and a mission. Hers is a story, which shows that courage, determination and faith always triumph.