Dr. Sameer Mansuri says he's perfectly happy to be blind.

And he has no desire whatsoever to be able to see. Sceptical? Listen to his explanation and he could almost make you believe he's lucky to be blind. The 31-year-old Mansuri, who is an Ayurvedic doctor who diagnoses ailments by feeling a patient's pulse, argues, "Your concentration decreases by 50 per cent when you can see because you get distracted by everything around you." So, he adds, with an infectious laugh, "Believe me when I say I'm happy to be blind. It actually helps me in my work."

The Ahmedabad-based Mansuri, who has a doctorate in Ayurveda, comes in every fortnight to Mumbai, where his patients range from reigning Bollywood superstars and film directors to middle- class professionals and families. He prepares his medications in Ahmedabad and sources herbs and other ingredients from Punjab, Andhra Pradesh, the Himalayas and Yemen. Yes, admits this graduate of English Literature, Ayurveda has taken a knocking for sub standard medicines.

"Pure Ayurvedic in gredients such as kasturi, pearl and gold are expensive and many Ayuryedic doctors use cheap/substitutes. Some also use allopathic medicines and steroids,"

His easy laughter and perennially cheerful disposition belie both his visual impairment and the journey to his cur­rent position. It is the tale of a young­ster who constantly stumbled over obsta­cles but refused to fall down. The story began a few months after his birth, on new year's day in 1975, when his mother tried to kill him in a bathtub filled with hot water. The family was ashamed of the bllnd-infaat, who was saved by an un-cle who caught his motheFln the hick of time. "My uncle tells me my mother planned to drown me in the tub and claim I fell in accidentally because I couldn't see," he narrates.

At the age of five, his parents packed him off to a .boarding school for the blind where he excelled in his studies. After completing his BA with a first class, Mansuri left Ahmedabad as he faced re-j   peated humiliation there and settled in _ Hyderabad. With no professional skills, "he discovered he could make a living as a !   masseur and turned out tsTbe surprising­ly good at it too.

Then an encounter with Guru Shamshuddin, an 89-year-old_Ayurvedic doctor, changed his life. Though he was initially reluctant, the youngster learnt about pulse diagnosis, the cause and cure of diseases and preparation of herbal medicines. After obtaining a practition­er's license in Hyderabad in 1999, Mansuri was directed by Shamshuddin to return to Ahmedabad and setup a clinic there.

Word of his cures spread soon and to­day, the doctor runs a brisk practice. Hetal Gandhi, 35, who lost vision in both her eyes three years ago due to a retinal dis­ease, regained partial eyesight six months after she began Dr. Mansuri's treatment in February.

"I can read the headlines in a newspaper now and can walk about in the house on my own,"

said Gandhi, speaking from Ahmedabad. Film producer and director Subhash Ghai is another admirer ,"Dr. Sameer Mansuri's treatment has bean very beneficial for my physical and mental energy levels. His pulse diagnosis is very good and he's treated my family and friends as well," says Ghai.

Although he is perfectly comfortable with his handicap, Mansuri does not easily forgive what he perceives as slights against the visually impaired. Business magnate Vijay Mallya should know. "I'm sorry you had an unpleasant experience with one of my flights.... since we have fallen short of your expectations, please, accept my apologies," Mallya wrote to Mansuri last month after he received a complaint from the doctor about some re¬marks made by the ground crew of King¬fisher Airlines in Mumbai. "I took action because if someone like me can be 'hu¬miliated, what about other blind people?" Mansuri asks angrily

The doctor, who lives in Ahmedabad's Paldi area with his wife - who's blind too - and their four-year-old son, says he does not treat more than 60 patients a month because he wants to devote more time to the trust he's set up to take care of the needs of the visually impaired. His way of giving back something to society in gratitude.