Braille menus surprise guests

Nidhi Inani was puzzled when she looked at the menu card at a restaurant in Worli on Thursday night. The 20-year-old could not decipher anything on it. But then came help, a volunteer from the National Association for the Blind (NAB), wearing a ‘May I Help U’ T-shirt.

The girl from Hyderabad who had come for a holiday to her aunt’s house was pleasantly surprised. The volunteer read out the Braille menu card for her. “It was amazing. The boy read out the menu so well,” she said.

Like Nidhi, every other guest who had come to Copper Chimney restaurant for dinner on December 3, the World Disability Day, had the experience of being helped out by a visually impaired person.

Present on the occasion was actor Suniel Shetty who could not stop marveling at the confidence of the NAB volunteers. “The girl who read the menu out to me was so sweet and so confident. She read the entire menu and also took down the order,” he said. “More such initiatives in different fields should be taken. They need to be included in the mainstream.”

Siddharth Kesari, a 21-year-old NAB volunteer, had a good time reading out the menus to the guests. “The guests were amazed. They were also very nice and cooperative,” he said.