“Vision is vital. When you can see everything, you can do anything”

“I can’t do anything,” Zamurrad said. “I just sit all the time. I am no use to my family.”

“My husband was at work before my eyesight went; I cooked for him and my family, cleaned the house, washed clothes and utensils and did some stitching. I used to go to the market on my own. Now I cannot go out because of my eyesight. I fell down when I went out a few months back and I haven’t tried to go out since.”

Not being able to care for her family was also making her very depressed. “I spend my day lying on the bed. I am always thinking and worried about my health and my helplessness. I think about my eyesight and when I will see this world again. I also think about life after death and sometimes I feel like running away, running from these surroundings. I want to get out of this situation.”

Zamurrad was frantic with worry, but one day she heard from a neighbour that operations were available for free at a Sightsavers partner hospital. “My neighbour got treated at the hospital,” said Zamurrad. “I came to know that there was hope, that my eyes could be treated without any expense.”

But money was still needed to get to the hospital. “We were empty handed,” Tariq explained. “We didn’t have any money for transport – the return fare is about 300 rupees each [about £2] and we didn’t have the money.”

After a few months of near total blindness, Zamurrad couldn’t stand her situation any longer and she persuaded Tariq to go to work for a few days, promising she wouldn’t move while he was out. He agreed and managed to scrape together the fare for the journey.

The couple finally made it to Sightsavers’ partner hospital, LRBT, where they received the good news Zamurrad could have an operation, and her face lit up. “They said my eyesight will come back and I will be alright – I felt happy when they told me this. I will do my job then. Now we are helpless and relying on everyone else, but after this operation I will do everything for myself. I feel happy that I will overcome all this.”

The following day, Zamurrad’s daughter Rania was by her side as her bandage was slowly peeled back and her eye examined. As the doctors moved out of the way, a smile spread over her face and she turned to look at her daughter. Immediately she pointed out all the details she could see, amazing her family, who could barely believe her vision had changed so quickly.

“When the bandage came off I saw a very beautiful face: Rania,” Zamurrad recalled. “She was so beautiful: when I looked at her face I thought she had changed a bit.”

The smile remained on Zamurrad’s face when she returned home a few days later: she grinned as she moved about confidently, talking about all the things she could do and how their lives are going to change.

“I will do stitching and knitting, I will make sweaters and caps for my daughter,” she said. “I’ll manage the kitchen and home, do cooking, cleaning, washing. Now I can go out, I will go to the market and see my friends.

“My husband has helped me a lot, but now I will look after him and he will go to work. When he returns in the evening I will see him with a happy face.”

Tariq was pleased to see the change in his wife too. “Before, she was tense all the time,” he said. “Now she is happy, she is smiling.”