It was an ordinary Sunday evening at the Karl Kübel Foundation on 8th February. A crisp breeze travelled down from the shoulders of the Western Ghats. The sky slowly turned into a theatre of amber and rose. Birds sang their way back home. The sun bid farewell for the day, leaning gently behind the distant folds of the rolling hills.
As romantic as it may sound, it was just another routine evening for this place. But there was nothing ordinary or routine about what was about to unfold over the next two days.
Nestled on the quiet stretch of Anaikatti Road, where the city of Coimbatore gently melts into the arms of the countryside, stands the Karl Kübel Foundation — the chosen home for the Help the Blind Foundation’s Annual Meet 2026.
And by nightfall, it was no longer just a campus. It was a reunion. A movement. A family gathering with purpose.
The Night Before
As the evening deepened, the soundscape began to shift. White canes tapped their way across corridors. Screen readers rapped rhythmically for their masters. Warm greetings overlapped with laughter. New connections formed. Old memories found their way back into conversations.
It felt as though the campus paused for a moment — not in silence, but in acknowledgment — soaking in the warmth, the familiarity, and the unmistakable magic of community bound by purpose.
And the Western Ghats stood quietly in the background as if listening in. By the time the night settled, the air was thick with excitement. The place went to sleep not in stillness, but with anticipation determined to give and take as much as possible in the coming two days.
The Day 1
Morning arrived with piping hot idlis and steaming cups of tea and coffee before a day of reflection and reckoning. 2025 had been a year of milestones for HTBF. A year of growth. A year of stretching boundaries and redefining what is possible. And as we looked back, there was a shared awareness in the room pride in how far we had travelled, and clarity about how far we still must go.
The day was anchored beautifully by our charming MCs, Ms. Suhas and Mr. Rajkumar, rising to the occasion. It began with a heartfelt welcome by our trustee, Mr. Ramesh Puri, followed by an inaugural address by Mrs. Niti Patel that was both grounding and powerful. She took us back to the early days of HTBF to the uncertainties, the courage, and the conviction that built this foundation brick by brick.
Then came the year in review, presented by our Managing Trustee, Mrs. Deepa Krishnamoorthy. It was a comprehensive walk through everything 2025 had asked of us and everything we had attempted in return. The numbers, the milestones, the success stories, and everything in between. What followed were individual presentations from each program team — scholarships, skill development, planning, fund management, and the many invisible systems that keep our work upright bringing specificity to the larger picture she had laid out.
One of the defining moments of Day 1 was the announcement of the Entrepreneurial Program — a unique initiative designed to support visually impaired entrepreneurs. While HTBF does not directly provide monetary funding, this program promises something equally powerful: guidance, industry insight, mentorship, and strategic support in navigating funding avenues and building sustainable ventures, aiming to be the backbone for all budding entrepreneurs with vision impairments.
By the halfway mark of Day 1, something became unmistakably clear. Though we came from different cities, backgrounds, and roles such as volunteers, donors, trustees, trainers, and internal teams, we were bound by a single thread. We listened with one heart. We responded with one mind. And we moved forward with one goal.
As the formal sessions drew to a close, the evening blossomed into celebration. Cultural performances lit up the conference hall — a street play that stirred thought, a multi-format performance that surprised us, poetry that lingered, songs that lifted the room. Trainers, volunteers, and team members took the stage and brought the hall, which had been formal and wrapped in tight attention all day, suddenly alive, full of hoots and cheers.
The Day 2
After a night filled with discussions, dances, storytelling, and an unforgettable round of Antyakshari that stretched close to midnight across the campus, Day 2 began with a photo session.
Was it a group picture? Technically, yes. But although we were a hundred individuals, what stood before the camera was one entity — one movement. The rolling mountains behind us formed the perfect backdrop, but what the cameras truly attempted to capture was something less visible: belief, unity, and collective commitment.
If Day 1 was the storm of celebration, Day 2 was the calm that followed — deliberate, reflective, strategic. With a theme of reviewing and realigning, teams divided program-wise for focused two-hour sessions.
The Scholarship Program team immersed themselves in deep discussions about policies, processes, and possibilities. Volunteers, trustees, and staff sat together, delving into possibilities of making what is already a robust system an even stronger force.
Meanwhile, the Skill Development team engaged in an activity that brought both intensity and excitement: divided into six groups, each team conceptualised an NGO and pitched for funding in a Shark Tank-style format. It was creative, competitive, and thought-provoking. Above all, it was a reminder that innovation thrives when people are invited to think boldly.
The rest of the day carried this spirit forward — more conversations, more presentations, and an award ceremony that honoured another year of commitment and dedication across HTBF.
And then, slowly, the winding down began. Some people started checking flight timings. Others coordinated early morning cabs or train schedules. Conversations turned softer, more personal. People squeezed in last-minute catch-ups with those they had just met over the past two days, and with those they had known for decades.
Gradually, the campus returned to stillness almost the way it had on that first Sunday evening. But it was a different kind of stillness this time. Two days of conversations, reviews, disagreements, laughter, planning, and performance had passed through these corridors. The chairs were back in place. The mics were switched off. The hills stood as they had before. Yet there was a quiet fullness in the space. The air felt heavier, brighter, and stronger all at once, if that is even possible.
Annual Meet 2026 will stay with people like me for a long time. Not only for what happened inside the conference hall, but for everything around it — the sumptuous snacks I picked up from the Thank You Bakery stall, the intriguing projects I explored at the SIP stall, the fascinating games introduced by Mr. N. Sankar for the visually impaired, the midnight Antyakshari, the unplanned laughter, the meaningful silences, the many informal conversations, and the many more wonderful people I met.
Annual meets are rarely about the two days they occupy on a calendar. They are about what they change for the rest of the year. For me, this one is going to shape and reshape many of the days ahead, because these were definitely not ordinary or routine days in any sense.