Miriam Batliwala is woman with a vision

In a room full of people, all eyes are on Miriam Batliwala whom everyone lovingly calls Mimi. The setting: her book release, Wednesday. She talks about her book InSight, which tells the story of her life — her slowly turning blind, the way she dealt with it, learnt how to dance, play tennis and golf, become a yoga instructor, lived and worked in Europe — and achieved more than most people with vision have.

“If you have no fear and you know that you've got to do something, you cross the hurdle whichever way it is, you always will get to do it,” Mimi says. “Whether I had to play golf, or dance, I said to myself, 'I will find a way to manage to find my own way around it’,” Mimi adds. Growing up, she recalls how she hid her disability from those around her. “I always thought it was something horrible like a disease, when you're young you think like that. I hid it thinking it was not a good thing,” she explains. “I wondered how people would react to me if I said it — when you're young you have a lot of idiotic notions,” she laughs.

Behind all her success she says, is her mother — her strength — who let her lose and allowed her to grow. "I knew very early that I couldn't see, at 12 years I couldn't read or see distance. My mother didn't say 'she can't see, she can't do, how she will do it.' It didn't come in the way. I did everything that everyone else did."
Her journey can be a lesson for people around the world today.

"It's important, especially for parents whose children are challenged, to make them as independent as they can be, to let them cope with their disabilities. They will find a way around it somehow — I did," she adds. She recalls her experiences, making everyone laugh and staying true to the 'spicy sangria' nature she is known to have. A woman who has found light in the darkness of her disability, Mimi is an inspiration for others who suffer as well as the healthy and fortunate.