A month shy of his fifth birthday, Ved Mehta was sent 1300 miles from home to Dadar School for the Blind-- really an orphanage in Bombay run by a Christian minister with Western ideas about education. Blinded by meningitis, Vedi faced the grim life of the blind in India. It was an act that required a great strength, a father sending a child to a foster home, but from it Vedi learned self-reliance. His career is testimony to the correctness of that decision. "Vedi had all the experiences of ordinary childhood, but ceased being a child before he was five. Thus in the narratives two voices emerge: the child and the adult. When the child speaks, grim events seem innocent and funny. But when the adult speaks, even ordinary moments seem sad, reflected in a memory that brings together past and present with bittersweet eloquence." (B-O-T Editorial Review Board)