When the World Turned Bright Again: The Story of Prem Tamang

Among them lives 84-year-old Prem Tamang, a man everyone in the village knows. He was the kind of person who always had time for a chat on the road, who laughed easily, and who worked hard in his fields until the light faded from the sky.

Age never frightened him. What he didn’t expect was how quietly his world would begin to disappear. It started with the letters in his prayer book fading away. Then the hills lost their shape, and faces blurred into shadows. Even bright afternoons began to feel like dusk.

“I used to think it was just tiredness,” Prem recalls. “Then one day I couldn’t tell who was standing in front of me; my son or my neighbor. That’s when I knew something was wrong.”

He stopped going to the fields. One day, he stumbled into a ditch; another day, he couldn’t find his own doorstep. His son gave up his job in town to care for him, and his daughter-in-law, a teacher, became his eyes, guiding him from bed to the courtyard, feeding him, helping him through his daily chores. For a man who had always been independent, it was unbearable. Slowly, Prem stopped talking. He sat by the window of his bamboo house from morning to dusk, listening to footsteps and voices, life moving past him.

“I didn’t want anyone to see me like that,” he says quietly. “I felt like a burden.”

Two years went by. Then, one winter morning, as he sat warming himself in the sun, he overheard a few neighbors talking about a free eye camp being held in Samsing by the Siliguri Greater Lions Hospital in partnership with Cure Blindness Project. Something in their conversation caught his attention. For the first time in a long while, he joined in. “Can I come with you?” he asked, his voice hesitant but hopeful. It was the first time he had spoken to his friends in months.

Everyone at home was busy that day, but Prem was determined. “Let me try once,” he told his daughter-in-law. “I’ll go on my own if I have to.”

It took him two hours to reach the camp: a bumpy jeep ride, a dusty walk, and a bit of help from his friends along the way. At the camp, the doctors examined his eyes carefully and found a dense cataract over his right eye. They reassured him that the condition could be treated and that the surgery would be done free of cost, supported by Cure Blindness Project.

The day itself, Prem was taken to the Siliguri Greater Lions Hospital for cataract surgery. When the bandage came off, he blinked against the sudden brightness. Slowly, the doctor’s face came into focus, and the sunlight filled the room. He whispered, “I can see,” his voice trembling.

His vision had improved from 6/24 to 6/9, but to him, those numbers meant nothing. What mattered was that he could once again walk on his own, recognize familiar faces, and see the world that had once slipped away.

“When I looked at my son for the first time after the surgery,” he says, “I felt like I had been given a second life. Everything looked new again.”

Today, back in Sulkapara, Prem wakes up early again. He sweeps the yard, chats with neighbors passing by, and sometimes walks to the fields just to feel the soil under his feet. His son has returned to work, and evenings are filled with laughter once more.

“I can see my grandson’s face clearly now,” Prem says, smiling softly. “It feels like life has come back to me.”