Totally blind Auckland bowler Parveen Shankar will next month help create Australia’s first pitch-dark restaurant modelled on New Zealand’s new Dans Le Noir
The downtown Auckland eatery in Rydges Hotel opened in March as the first of its kind in the Southern Hemisphere and is staffed by blind bowler-waiters including Shankar serving customers who dine out in total darkness. The restaurant is a popular venue for private parties, business functions and team-building exercises where guests experience eating as blind people must.
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Shankar said he would advise on staff selection and training at the new Melbourne Dans Le Noir (Dine in the Dark) in inner-city South Yarra. Like Auckland, the new Melbourne restaurant will seat 60 at just five tables to encourage guests to socialise and enjoy a totally different dining experience. The concept began in Paris 12 years ago and was quickly adopted by selected restaurants in major European cities including London. Keen to expand worldwide, Dans Le Noir’s business development management in Paris chose the South Pacific as an attractive international launch pad and after coming to New Zealand for talks with the Blind Foundation and Rydges Hotel went ahead with its plans.
Originally from Fiji, Shankar moved to Auckland in 2001 and was blinded in a car accident three years later. “I had been a fitter and welder and the accident was like the end of my life,” he said. “but that changed after talking with the Blind Foundation which teaches orientation and mobility so we can make our own way focussing on what we can do, not what we can’t. We learned things from how to make toast and boil eggs to computing and sport and it was bowls which really attracted me. I had played soccer and rugby and liked being outdoors and making new friends.”
Shankar joined Browns Bay Bowling Club in 2011 and three years later moved to Papakura. He last year finished runner-up in the national titles held at New Plymouth. “My goal now is to represent New Zealand at the Blind Bowls World Cup on the Gold Coast in 2021 but first I must win the national title here,” he said.
He has been a bowls director for six years, carefully guiding other blind players through their games against sighted bowlers – “the biggest thing about bowls is the appreciation these guys get from playing a sport,” he said, “and the comradeship. Blind bowlers are increasing in number since I was a director in Auckland when there were about 30 but they are now pushing 50 with several now playing in Christchurch and they will spread to other South Island clubs.”
Shankar said he was happy to have his job as a blind waiter at the dark bar as blind people found it difficult to gain employment – “Others have no idea what we can do and they won’t give us a chance to prove ourselves,” he said. “But we can be independent in almost anything - in Auckland there has been a blind acupuncturist and a nurse assistant. Our biggest barrier it the restriction society puts on us."
