When he said ‘SENSORY SUBSTITUTION TECHNOLOGY’, I was clueless what he meant. Then he started talking about how he has been using statistics to interpret images and I was already wondering what he was trying to explain to me. By now I already knew that I was talking to one of the very few visually impaired photographers in India and across the globe. Welcome to the world of Pranav Lal.
Born in Kuwait, the biggest challenge Pranav faced as a visually impaired was accessing information. While he had access to audio books much before many others in India did, he was already listening to BBC and Voice of America on Radio but still most of the information he needed was not accessible. Pranav enjoyed technology from his childhood days. His parents, in particular his father ensured that he had sufficient exposure to it. It is only now that he thinks about it, that it is fortunate he likes technology. No wonder, he has leverage this passion of his to develop support devices for his fellow VIPs (visually impaired persons).
In the area of NVDA (non-visual desktop access), Pranav has played a pivotal role in developing the dictation bridge which announces back what you are typing. The dictation Bridge program echoes back recognized text from speech recognition engine specifically. It works with Dragon Professional from Nuance and with Microsoft’s speech-recognition engine.
In the area of photography, he has been working for more than a decade to see how he can capture images better and how they can be explained to the mind when the eyes cannot see. The software that is at the core of the third eye was developed by Dr. Peter B.L. Meijer. ‘I have worked on developing its variant that works on Linux and similar operating systems and keep working on better hardware to enhance its ease-of-use and to capture the best possible image’ says Pranav. To understand more, maybe you need to meet him!
with his one hand’s fingers not completely developed and cane in the other, Pranav finds it very difficult to maneuver his way on the road and staircases, for that he is developing a device for capturing below the knee impediments which come on his way. he says this device, once developed, will be worn on the waist.
It’s been five years since he lost his vision and started a “new” life. As he says, “time really flies and I am 17 now. I have transformed from a boy who liked to play and watch cartoons all day, who wouldn’t talk to anyone, to a guy who goes on the stage, cracks funny jokes and creates waves of laughter!”
It’s been quite a journey for Sachin and his hunger to achieve more is insatiable. He is in 10th standard and already creating ripples of laughter across the city of lakes, Udaipur. One of the very few visually impaired standup comedians in India, Sachin dreams of becoming a corporate lawyer and open his own legal firm in the future. He wants to do BA+LLB course from a good law school in India after his schooling. An ideal life for him would be to work on weekdays and do standup comedy over weekends.
When he lost his vision because of retinitis pigmentosa- a group of rare, genetic disorders that involve a breakdown and loss of cells in the retina, he got very depressed in life. His friends supported him and made him realize that he had lost his physical vision but he still had a clear sight of his dreams which most people in today’s world lack. At this juncture of life, the first thing he did was, learnt Braille and learnt how to use screen readers in phones and laptops. He also started practicing movement using a stick to improve his mobility. Special school really supported him in learning all that was needed to be an independent visually impaired person. He made more and more friends and has never looked back since then. Sachin has been doing standup comedy for last two years and draws maximum satisfaction from making people laugh.
His next challenge is to improve on his mobility so that he can travel to different cities across India and the world to spread his message of laughter!
Chetna Nagpal was born blind to visually impaired parents. While some would call it the epitome of darkness but for Chetna all she knew was that she had to illuminate not just her family’s life but also the lives of visually impaired people across India. Her health issues never left her and she was detected with type 1 diabetes at the age of 3 for which she takes insulin twice a day which she has to do all her life now.
Chetna’s father was too possessive about her and hence was reluctant to send her to school due to health issues which started as soon as she was born. But she was an innate fighter and finally joined Saksham school to learn braille and computer training for 2 years. After her satisfactory performance at Saksham, she joined Salwan Public School in class VII and completed her class XII from the same school with an excellent score of 92.25 % (CBSE) in Arts stream. She struggled with her school management to get a writer because the school was managing their first visually impaired student who was appearing for class XII board exams from their institution. The school first informed her that the writer will be provided by CBSE but she found out that the CBSE writers were not up to the mark from many of her friends. She finally convinced her school teachers and managed to get approval for a writer from class XI who finally wrote her exam. Even her CBSE result was held up for 2 weeks which was the most tumultuous period of her career when she was not even informed by the board why they had held up her results. She once again struggled for getting her result out and it was only after creating immense pressure on CBSE that they released her result along with the mark sheet and certificate of passing. Chetna then went on to join the prestigious Lady Shri Ram College for Women, Delhi University, to pursue her graduation degree in political science honors. She has recently graduated successfully with flying colors.
She is an inspiration for music performers being a fine singer and has been winning accolades since school days itself. She now runs a Foundation called Golden Shine along with Mr. Ankur Gupta who is another fine visually impaired musician. They teach music free of cost to persons with disabilities under the aegis of Golden Shine and organize events to showcase the talent of not just their students but also other disabled musicians from all across the country.
Mohammad Khalid was born in Ballia, Uttar Pradesh (India). Khalid had a tough childhood as they were 4 brothers and 3 sisters out of which 3 brothers had visual impairment. While the family tried to get them treatment but doctors from Banaras Medical College misguided the family saying that the vision would improve as the kids grew up whereas it happened the opposite way and their vision kept declining. Khalid was completely blind by the time he reached 5th class and was already hitting into the wall having no accessible buildings in their region and no training being imparted for visually impaired. His father sent him to 3 different Madrasas to try and make him a hafiz (someone who knows the Quran by heart) but he kept absconding. Finally in 1997, he was brought to AIIMS where he was operated for his right eye and he regained his vision a little. The doctors advised that even after getting little vision back, he would not be able read and write. That is when his parents decided to admit him at Blind Relief Association in Delhi.
His family was always taunted for being extremely religious and still having 3 visually impaired in the family. People in villages still feel that visual impairment is a curse of god for all your wrongdoings. While in Delhi, Khalid did his studies diligently and started playing chess. He was a good chess player and went on to play at the world championship in Antalya, Turkey representing India on the global stage. He still holds an international rating in Chess. After completing school, Khalid joined St Stephen’s College and remained captain of their Chess team throughout his college life. While he was winning accolades in chess, he chose to study Bachelors in education at St. Stephen’s because he wanted to be an earning member of his family. Being the eldest, he always felt this as his responsibility.
After completing his bachelor’s degree, he got placement in a school where he taught social science for one year. While teaching he realized that he could still do much more and went on to clear Central Teacher Eligibility Test. But due to some legal issues despite of clearing the test, he had to back out. Khalid never gave up and decided to get into banking and cleared the requisite examination. He then had to appear for interviews with every bank separately because in 2011 there was no system of centralized interviews for public sector banks. While giving these interviews, the question which troubled Khalid time and again was “are you 100% blind?” The answer was an obvious yes and the interview would end there. Khalid kept his struggle on and finally managed to convince bankers at Bank of India to hire him and then Syndicate bank, UCO Bank, Bank of Maharashtra, United Bank of India and Punjab National Bank followed. After weighing all the options, Khalid decided to join Punjab National Bank and joined as a management trainee. He was the first 100% visually impaired to join the bank in the officer grade. All the other visually impaired who had joined prior to him were working at the clerical level. Even the bank did not know what work to give a visually impaired officer and how his training had to be carried out but as Khalid says, the bank trained him well and he learnt finance despite of being from arts background. He was trained at different locations pan India which he completed successfully.
After completing his training, he was allotted a branch in South Delhi where he joined but his chief manager did not know what work should be allotted to him. He finally started resolving customer queries as his memory was like a computer and he could recall any policy of the bank anytime required. While working he realized that for him to function without JAWS ((“Job Access with Speech”) was impossible and that is when he decided to write to the Managing Director of his bank for getting him the same. The General Manager (HR) was immediately instructed and JAWS was provided to him to enable him to discharge his duties efficiently. He finally was able to convince his boss that he could do the work of KYC and account opening through a 2 level authentication process. His quality of work was appreciated by all his staff members and he went on to become a manager and later senior manager. His dream was to manage a branch of Punjab National bank and be the first 100% visually impaired to be a branch manager in any public sector bank in India. He first realized that dream by partially becoming the 2nd in command in another branch in south Delhi and kept working relentlessly towards achieving his dream. He has already served as an officiating chief manager in a branch and is now working as an incumbent branch manager. Khalid is now married and feels that there is no replacement for hard work and anyone can make mistakes including the blind. He says, “I am proud to be blind. I can see everything but differently. Through smell, hearing and touch, blind can see so much more than even sighted people. If you do not make mistakes, how will you learn?”
