SEVENTY-YEAR-OLD Chandru Singh is gazing at his doctor with the joy and wonder of a baby. He cannot believe his eyes.

For years, his sight was blighted by a thick fog caused by cataracts: he could not see his grandchildren to look after them, and could no longer look after himself. The small farm on which his family depends had declined as his sight deteriorated. He had fallen from patriarch provider to dependent invalid in just a few years.

But today, for the first time, he is studying the face of the woman whose surgical skills have returned not only his sight, but his old life and pride.

He is sitting in the consulting room at the Venu Eye Institute’s Om Indu Jain hospital in Dhankot, a few miles from Delhi, wearing a traditional dhoti and shaking the long bamboo pole he has been using as a white stick. “Now I can see properly, I don’t need it to find my way,” he says with a grin.

The woman he is beaming at is Meena Goyal, the eye surgeon who removed his cataracts after undergoing an intensive training course funded by the British charity Sightsavers International. The operation took just 15 minutes and cost about £17 but the difference it will make to Singh’s life is beyond measure.

“At first I noticed a little blurring, but then it started to get worse,” he explained, rubbing his peppery beard. “It started with small things. It affected my judgment on the farm. When you plant seeds they have to be the right distance apart, but I was getting it wrong because I couldn’t see, and the plants were dying.

“I was having problems managing the cattle. I had to milk the buffalo every morning, but I’d put the bucket in the wrong place, and milk would spill on the ground. I was losing money. I used to support my family, but suddenly I couldn’t and I was frustrated.

“I have six grandchildren. The children would be playing in front of me, but I couldn’t see them. The cattle are all around us, and I always worried about the children’s safety, but I couldn’t protect them.”

All that changed a week ago when a mobile clinic run by Venu, a local charity, called at his village. Singh was offered a trip to Venu’s hospital for an operation the same day. “I feel so good because I will be able to do so many things now,” he said. “I’ll be able to walk to the table for food, instead of having to have it brought to me.”

Some 35 patients are operated on every day, but the charity’s staff are frustrated that they cannot do more: one in four of the world’s blind lives in India. The country has 45m visually impaired people, of whom almost 10m are blind through cataracts that could be cheaply and quickly treated.

By giving to The Sunday Times Christmas Appeal, you could help support the Venu clinic, enabling it to train eye surgeons and take its services into remote areas of India where there is precious little care.

Every five seconds someone in the world goes blind: a child goes blind every minute — just under 500,000 a year. And much of this blindness — an estimated 75% in India — is easily curable, or preventable.

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