In the short story named "Red Letter Days", there is a character (who is also the the narrator) called Vedi, experiencing new things and changing with the help of his new experiences. He races with other kids, and becomes more self-confident and brave after those races.
It's obvious that people change when they are in deep feelings. The feelings can be elation, desolation or stress. But all of the feelings help us grow up in some way. In this story, the excitement and joy of freedom helps Vedi grow up.
Vedi is a blind boy, who lives in India. It must be hard to be blind in India, because families usually raise blind children as vagabonds. However, Vedi is really lucky to have such parents, sending him to a nice school. Even if he goes to a fine school, Vedi's freedom is still limited a lot. First of all, he is not permitted to walk without a sighted child beside him.
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English: Vedi Temple, Kumbhalgarh Fort, Rajasthan,...He is also not allowed to run, although he has a sighted boy to hold on to.
The Sighted Master, who is in charge of all the blind children, usually helps those kids by providing them all the amusing things he can. That's why he brings the idea of a racing track for the children. After a fiasco, which was supposed to be the first race, the Sighted Master comprehends that the system has some errors causing the boys to hurt themselves. But even though Vedi has been hurt a lot, he enjoys the races and starts to be ambitious.
The racing tracks allow Vedi to move independently. He doesn't have to hold a sighted boy while he is running on the racing track.and independence makes him more self-assured because he now knows that he can do something all by himself well.
Vedi also knows that he is in the same conditions with the sighted kids. This makes him even more confident, because he knows he can win against the sighted boys and prove that he is superior to them is one way.
While they are racing, the blind boys have to hold a hoop, with the aim of not hitting anything or anyone by loosing track, but this as well reminds Vedi that he has to be dependent on something constantly.
Vedi is probably more fearless that the other blind boys. We can see this from Vedi's desire of independence by letting the hoop. Maybe this is because Vedi is more ambitious than the other kids, but still, not all the blind people run around without holding anything to keep them on the road. An action like this requires courage. During the races, Vedi has gained that courage by trying to have equal conditions with other kids.
Before racing with other children, Vedi had nothing to devote himself to. When he was racing, he wanted to win so much that he could not think of something else. He wants to beat the other kids a lot, so he forgets all about everything. He sterts to be determined, for he now has something to look forward to. This may be an obsession for him, winning in the races, but Vedi's determination is always under control.
Vedi has changed a lot after the races against the sighted kids. he became more self-confident and fearless after the races. The races also helped him to find something to devote himself to. He was determined and maybe even obsessed with the races. But even that could be considered a good thing, because people need to dedicate themselves to something.
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