I’ll never forget the day I found out that I was color blind.I was in for the final admissions at Armed Forces Medical College admissions and was asked to have a series of medical tests that normally each college would have taken.Everything was going great until i was asked to read the number out of a jumble of dots on a book. The first one I saw just fine, but most of the others were either incredibly difficult to make out or I couldn’t decipher them at all. It was the Ishihara test for color blindness.And as luck would have it, I was the only one in the entire batch that was having such an issue with the pictures. Everyone else could just rattle off these numbers, but to me most were just a collection of dots and nothing else.I could just look at them and say WTF..!!
This was the day where I had to start answering these questions every time it came out that I had this hereditary condition: “Can you see green?” “Can you see red?” “What color is this?” It is simply amazing how misunderstood this condition is. I also don’t think people realize how much this misunderstanding can affect people.
So,hereby i try to explain what really is color blindness..
Color blindness is an inherited condition most common in men ( 8-12 percent of white men, and less than one half of one percent in women). The basic definition of color blindness comes in three basic flavors. There is the very rare condition of total color blindness, where a person sees their world in shades of black, white, and gray. Blue-yellow color blindness is also quite rare, and as the name implies, these people struggle with colors in shades of blue and yellow. The last classification is red-green color blindness. This is, by far the most common version of the condition. Individuals with this last aspect have issues with shades of red and green.
In my case, I am red-green color blind. The first thing people do when they hear this is immediately point to something red or something green and ask if I can tell what color it is. The short answer to that is, yes I can see green and I can see red. The label color blind is something of a misnomer. Really the condition should really be labeled as having a color deficiency and not blindness to color altogether. Much like other traits you have such as your finger prints, color blindness is unique to the person. My issues really only flare up on two occasions. In really low light some greens for me will turn grey or black (no not stoplights at night, it’s more subtle than that). Secondly, if two shades of green are close together and are very similar, they may blend together or create a bit of a grey shift too. It is hard to describe, but that’s what happens for me.
My own version of color blindness is unique to me. Someone else, who is also classified as red-green, might have a different sensitivity or other colors that cause issues. This is because it all depends on what the eyes are deficient in. There are three different types of cones in the eye that decide how it picks up colors. Now color blindness results when one of these cones are missing, or is simply not working properly.
One of the unfortunate consequences of this condition is that some people, who would otherwise be qualified to do so, are disqualified from holding certain jobs because they are being labeled as color blind.
And so,here i am doing an mba whereby i cud have been an army doctor or a cosmologist by now..!!
