People of Value

Chennai: Rajni Gopalakrishna

When nine-year-old Rajni Gopalakrishna was given a penicillin injection for a common cold without a test shot, she nearly died. She developed the Stevens Johnson syndrome (a severe form of skin rash) which was nearly fatal for her.

The allergy, which led to a severe eye inflammation, left her almost blind. But, she survived. Looking back, in an interview to Yes , Rajni, now 36-year-old, a chartered accountant employed in a top Bangalore based multinational says, “I felt there was a purpose to my life if I had survived such a terrible allergy.”

Her life subsequently was not exactly a bed of roses. The allergy had left her vision highly sensitive to the sun, with constant tears and eyelash growth inside her eyes. This handicap stopped her from outdoor games and extracurricular activities at school. Her vision gradually started to fade and a corneal grafting operation at the age of 19 led her to the verge of blindness.

What was difficult was facing the “sympathy” from people around her. She recounts, “It was not just the eye pain and irritation. It was mental torture to be left out of normal activities in college and among friends and to handle the sympathy from people. Nobody will address a blind person directly they will always talk to you through your family members. I hated that.

“She also had her “why me” moments. She says, “I do feel frustrated and depressed. I turned blind through no fault of mine. Who will marry me now, what is my future are thoughts that run through my head.” But a very strong and positive nature has helped her through this misfortune. If she could not study at nights, she managed to squeeze in her studies in the morning. If she felt tortured by her thoughts, she would pick up a book and read. (When her eyesight was still available)

When she faced rejection at job interviews because of her visual impairment after her degree, she decided to take up a CA course to make her credentials strong. She started studying for her CA in 1991, though she was sightless by that time. It's another matter that she had to discontinue her studies, when her father was diagnosed with leukemia. To handle her pain Rajni found a way.

She started Sahajaya yoga, a form of meditation. “My brother introduced me to the yoga and it provided me with emotional balance,” she relates.

Rajni also learnt a musical instrument, the veena at the time. Around this time, she also joined Samarthanam, a voluntary organization in Bangalore , and learnt about screen reading software for the visually challenged. In a few years, she was proficient in operating MS applications. The volunteers at Samarthanam urged her to pursue her CA again. Work material came to her in CD from and she would convert it to the software where she could “hear” the text.

Volunteers helped her when it came to diagrams, reading balance sheets and profit and lose statements simultaneously. She also had a scribe at her final exam and Rajni cleared her CA exams.

“I felt sense of satisfaction that all my efforts had paid off when I passed the exams. I am happy that after me, many visually impaired people are pursuing commerce instead of arts,” she says. “I've always seen my disability at a mental level and not at a physical one,” she adds.

Improvement is science and technology and society's changing perceptions towards the visually challenged have helped her too, Rajni says. She has also always adopted an attitude of “not succumbing but accepting challenges” in life.

Source: Not blind to life. Indian Express, Daily. Chennai, 15 September 2006

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New Delhi : Blind girls at the NAB

They are bubbly, dainty, courageous and in fact, a living example of how to put the best to use. One look at the bunch of young girls in their early 20s from the National Association for the Blind, India (NAB) Centre in Hauz Khas Enclave and there is no way you can sense their inability to see very well. “Yes, they are visually impaired. But that is their biggest strength. That is the reason they are more confident and independent than other girls of their age,” says Shalini Mishra, assistant director, NAB India.

Recently, these girls put up an inspiring theatrical performance in the city, in collaboration with Manthan, a voluntary organization that organizes cultural events in the city. The aim was to sensitize people about how important it is to give and equal status to blind women.

Be it handicraft making, cooking, and washing their own clothes, serving food to the innumerable people who come to meet these smart women, coordinating their clothes or working on the computer, young students of NAB India excel in all.

Neha Chandel has recently joined the centre and travels on her own to Delhi University where she stays in a PG accommodation. “I have become very independent. After I realized I could not see properly for life, I was quite insecure about my future. But more than anything, I have developed a zeal for life and courage to live it on my terms.” Reena Bhatia rose from a long coma that affected her eye sight and locomotive skills. Besides being left behind among her friends, she lost precious time and could not complete her

graduation in time. But being with the centre has brought a lot of agility in her movements and opportunity to pursue her dream. “Besides availing a lot from regular yoga classes, meditative techniques, co-ordination activity, I am sure to accomplish my dream of becoming a chartered account,” she says.

Today, the students are completely equipped to write a word document, work on excel or complex databases, access the internet read and send mails, consolidate numerical data and more.

Source: Eye do see. The times of India, Daily, New Delhi, 16 September 2006

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