well mohit there is no concrete answer to such questions
you will have to judge the situation in question. for e.g. if your one of friends is showing photos of the place he visited. you can ask related questions or catch the word in the discussion regarding photos which will help you to participate in their discussion. suppose your friends are laughing at the friend's dressing style then it is possible that you can't get involve at that moment but you ask the friend nearby to you who is participating in laughter as you will understand upcoming jokes which will occur in relation to the previous joke. actually, what i have observed that these are problems you face in the initial stages when you are getting accommodated but slowly you should start making them aware of the problem you face. as per my experience after certain time , you and your sighted friends will get habituated to each other. the main problem which i feel is that when you enter in party or classrooms when you are new to such things say new student in the class or new member in club. it is possible, even at first day you find friends it becomes difficult to spot the next day where they are sitting. or even i have faced such situations where you can't describe appearance of the friend you met earlier so it becomes very difficult in situations like club where people do not know each other thoroughly or in starting days of the classes where people are not familiar to each other. regarding food, i will suggest you ask such questions say, hmm so today are we eating buffet or self service? or who is serving the food! or you can ask the cost of the food and quantity so you can get idea of the food so if you feel number of individuals are more than food available so you can control your hunger :)! another if you really don't know how much is food and you are are you all sharing in 1 plate then what i do is i just ask for separate plate and you can tell this in as if you are not telling something serious or telling your problem just say, if i will start eating you will left for nothing so better to have in separate plate for myself! blindness has that advantage of not knowing the limits on the availability of food so better to self control :) however, what to say it completely depends upon the situation types of people you are dealing with and the food you are sharing. if they are biscuits then you can strike up the discussion related to tastes of biscuits and find out which types of biscuits are there and share together but if you have something like chicken chilly or some things which you have delicate to handle then you can use above mentioned trick to get in separate plate. and regarding the contribution to which you don't understand what is going on. remember, a sighted person joining in middle of the task going on also asks what are you doing guys? or even sometimes, i have observed, sighted person sits there in the group and does things like playing on mobile or flipping the book lying nearby and starts asking "batana, what happened" so you can also pretend to be busy and ask what's going on sorry i was busy in saving the number in my mobile or some other reason suitable for that situation. off course after you get settled in group you should start making your friends aware about your problems as if you will not do that then they will never understand. well, these were completely my thoughts and anyone might have different opinions. Regards Siddhi On 1/26/13, Syed Imran <syed.f...@gmail.com> wrote: > Good question. When any food's being shared, a totally blind person may not > know how much to take as he or she may not know the total quantity of the > food available. In such situations, I probably think communication is our > best bet. May be we could talk to our sighted friends about these things > and > make them clear of what's expected of them at that point of time. We can > prepare them to tell us if there's more food, less food or just enough for > the gathering. > > In one of the meetings few months ago, As soon as I sat at the table, I was > told that I could have some cookies if I like, and somebody just pushed a > plate full of them towards me. I thought they're all for me, but still I > wanted to be sure. So I asked "Can I finish them all?" Interestingly, > someone on my far left was bold to say that everyone were sharing the same > plate of those cookies with me and I won't be finishing all of them myself. > > > -----Original Message----- > From: AccessIndia [mailto:accessindia-boun...@accessindia.org.in] On Behalf > Of Umesha Economics > Sent: 26 January 2013 12:36 > To: accessindia@accessindia.org.in > Subject: Re: [AI] When you sometimes feel isolated in the company of > yoursighted friends > > why may not you know how to eat it? > > Umesha > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Mohit Shah Shah" <mohit.shah...@gmail.com> > To: <accessindia@accessindia.org.in> > Sent: Wednesday, 23 January, 2013 6:46 PM > Subject: [AI] When you sometimes feel isolated in the company of > yoursighted > friends > > >> Hi all, >> >> I know that we all have a lot of sighted friends and/or colleagues. >> While it is always fun to hang out with friends, I sometimes face the >> below mentioned problems. >> >> When your sighted friends get too busy amongst themselves i.e. when >> they're looking at some photos or are looking at someone/something and >> are laughing hysterically, don't you feel kind of isolated or lonely? >> Furthermore, when they are sharing food, it is difficult for the >> blind person to really get involved because you may not know what the >> food item is, and, even if you find out through their conversation or >> by asking, you may get self-conscious and may not know how to eat it >> when it is offered to you. >> Always saying that you're not hungry cannot be an excuse. They >> will eventually find out the real reason. >> A friend of mine sometimes says, "I will help you to eat this." and >> he puts the food in a spoon and gives it to me. >> He does this with the best of intentions, but it always makes me feel >> awkward and kind of incompetent. >> And before any of the blind police say that I should learn table >> manners, let me tell you that I know how to use a fork, knife and >> spoon. I only face a problem in the aforementioned situation. >> Similarly, you can always get involved when they're simply talking >> about something, but you really can't do much when you don't even know >> what they're doing. >> >> Please let me know what you guys think about all this. >> >> Cheers, >> Mohit >> >> >> Register at the dedicated AccessIndia list for discussing >> accessibility of mobile phones / Tabs on: >> http://mail.accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/mobile.accessindia_acc >> essindia.org.in >> >> >> Search for old postings at: >> http://www.mail-archive.com/accessindia@accessindia.org.in/ >> >> To unsubscribe send a message to >> accessindia-requ...@accessindia.org.in >> with the subject unsubscribe. >> >> To change your subscription to digest mode or make any other changes, >> please visit the list home page at >> http://accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/accessindia_accessindia.org >> .in >> > > > > Register at the dedicated AccessIndia list for discussing accessibility of > mobile phones / Tabs on: > http://mail.accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/mobile.accessindia_accessind > ia.org.in > > > Search for old postings at: > http://www.mail-archive.com/accessindia@accessindia.org.in/ > > To unsubscribe send a message to > accessindia-requ...@accessindia.org.in > with the subject unsubscribe. > > To change your subscription to digest mode or make any other changes, > please > visit the list home page at > http://accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/accessindia_accessindia.org.in > > > > Register at the dedicated AccessIndia list for discussing accessibility of > mobile phones / Tabs on: > http://mail.accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/mobile.accessindia_accessindia.org.in > > > Search for old postings at: > http://www.mail-archive.com/accessindia@accessindia.org.in/ > > To unsubscribe send a message to > accessindia-requ...@accessindia.org.in > with the subject unsubscribe. > > To change your subscription to digest mode or make any other changes, please > visit the list home page at > http://accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/accessindia_accessindia.org.in > > Register at the dedicated AccessIndia list for discussing accessibility of mobile phones / Tabs on: http://mail.accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/mobile.accessindia_accessindia.org.in Search for old postings at: http://www.mail-archive.com/accessindia@accessindia.org.in/ To unsubscribe send a message to accessindia-requ...@accessindia.org.in with the subject unsubscribe. 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