good story On 3/5/15, timy sebastian <[email protected]> wrote: > Only last night, I finished reading ‘Lights Out’, a brutally honest book > by my former journalist colleague L Subramani, who has written about > gradually going blind at 18 from a degenerative retinal disease called > Retinitis Pigmentosa; and this morning, I have this sudden desperate > desire to speak to him. I manage to get his number from a common friend > and call hesitatingly; it’s been 10 years and I am sure he has forgotten > who I am. “Hi Mani, I’m sure you don’t remember me,” I begin. “Hey > Rachna!” he cuts me short, and a smile touches me all the way from > Bengaluru. “Of course I remember your voice. I used to like it.” > > Mani > > Photo Credit to “Naveen Kumar” > > If I don’t mince words with politically correct phrases; I can tell you > bluntly that Mani is completely blind. He wasn’t born that way but > that’s how he was when I met him in ‘Deccan Herald’; walking around the > office with a cane, running into furniture sometimes, cracking jokes, > editing reports, sharing coffee when the evening kapi cart came rolling > down. Oh yes! Even accidentally sitting on a skinny young intern’s lap > once (an incident that alarmed him more than it alarmed her). Tall, > broad shouldered, gentle and soft spoken; slightly bent and with a > hesitant walk because he was extra careful about not walking into > something or someone; that was Mani as I knew him. > > A little later into the conversation when I pull his leg about how he > couldn’t possibly have recognised my voice after all these years, Mani > tells me I’m wrong. “For me, hearing a voice after 10 years is just like > seeing an old friend walk down the road is for you. It might have aged a > little or acquired a new texture and tone; but unless it has changed > drastically, I will recognise it.” > > *Mani’s story* > > Read his book and you will know him better than my article can tell you. > It’s the amazing story of a kid who faced impending blindness with grit > and, more importantly, came out of it with his dreams, his zest for life > and his sense of humour intact. > > At 15, as a young schoolboy who was called four eyes by his classmates > because he wore glasses, Mani couldn’t believe what his ophthalmologist > told him gently after a routine check up: that he would be going blind > slowly. It might happen in a year, or two or more, but it would happen. > His mother’s faith in God’s curative powers had Mani being made “to beg > for forgiveness and be cured” by astrologers, swamis, godmen and even > rolling in a wet dhoti at the Kannudaya Nayaki temple of the devi who is > believed to be the protector of eyes. > > Nothing worked. He slowly started having flashes of blindness – > sometimes on his way to school. Once when he was getting in a cinema > hall with his classmates for a film show and once walking back home from > a temple after dark. As his eyesight slowly started failing, Mani > underwent a terrible phase. He would see flashes of light and then > complete darkness. His vision was blurring. He started losing > confidence. He would walk with a stoop, so that if he fell he wouldn’t > be hurt so badly; he would go around with knees bent in apprehension, > fearing he would bang into something; he would live in constant fear > that his eyesight would go completely. “If anyone had told me earlier > that blindness would come as a relief, I would have laughed at him. But, > at that time, anything seemed better than this hell,” he says, > confessing that he welcomed his blindness when it finally claimed him at > 18 years of age. And that is where Mani’s book ends; but if you ask me, > that is where his real story began. > > *Zero technology days* > > Mani > > Photo Credit to “Naveen Kumar” > > Mani tells me that when he started looking for a job, the top option for > him was to become a telephone operator in a bank. “It was a popular > career for blind people since it gave you a regular salary though there > would not be any promotions. For me, it was completely uninspiring.” A > chance to edit documents translated into English from Japanese came his > way since he knew Japanese, but it was boring too. “My trip in life > wasn’t about earning money,” he says. Sports journalism was where his > heart was set but the first question editors asked him when he went > looking for work was: How will you do it? It was a difficult question to > answer but eventually he showed them how. > > Right from 1998, when he first went looking for a journalism job, all > the way to 2003; Mani worked without any accessible technology. He would > sit at tennis matches and ask for the shots to be described to him. “I > could hear the ball. And since I had seen tennis in my school days I > could visualize the shot when someone said it was a forehand cross court > or it was a drop shot, I already knew what these were, and it was easy > for me to file reports.” When he started reporting hockey, it was an > even bigger challenge. David, who used to report sports for the ‘New > Indian Express’ encouraged him to do it. “He suggested I bring an alarm > clock to the game and set it for 45 minutes when the game started. When > a goal was scored I would ask the exact time and the number on the > jersey of the player who has scored it. Since I knew who was playing at > what number, I could file my report easily.” > > In the year 2000, Mani started working with Chennaionline.com as a > sports reporter and they were paying him well. “I was so rich that I had > a chauffeur driven bike. I employed a guy who would drive me around, I > would ride pillion; he would also key in my stories,” he laughs > heartily. And then came JAWS, which was Mani’s first brush with > technology that would change his life forever. > > * How technology liberated him* > > Mani had his eyes set on a screen reading software called JAWS that > could read out from a computer screen. He asked a friend who owed him Rs > 3000 to fix a speaker to his computer. He didn’t have $1300 for JAWS > full version and the free demo version he had downloaded would stop > working in 40 minutes. Each time, Mani had to save the work and restart > the system to make it work again. Around the same time, Shantha Kumar, > Editor of ‘Deccan Herald’, offered him a job. “That was when my brother > L Prakash, who worked in Japan, wired me the money to buy the full version.” > > Mani’s dream of becoming a journalist had come true. Over the years, > technology has been a great liberator. It has made information > accessibility and gathering completely free. Gone are the days when he > would have to depend on another person to even read a book to him. “I > would have to see if they were free, wonder if I was hassling them, and > try not to disturb them on a Sunday. Now all that has completely > snapped. The internet has put books, magazines, newspapers in the public > domain and I can read these on my own. In fact, I recently read > ‘Treasure Island’, along with my daughter. I got an iPhone copy while > she read her paperback,” > > He uses an iPhone, which is a perfect gadget for the visually > handicapped. “It has an inbuilt screen reader. If you go to settings, > and chose accessibility, your cell will start reading to you. That’s how > I read books on Kindle, or NDTV or newspapers.” > > Another app that Mani swears by is TapTapSee which helps the visually > impaired identify objects they encounter in their daily lives and become > more independent. Designed specifically with blind people in mind, it > allows the user to click quick photos and then describes these > accurately. If you take a picture of your dog it will tell you that it’s > a big and hairy German Shepherd; if you take a picture of your fridge > rack it’ll tell you where the milk is and where the beans are. Mani says > he uses it in press conferences; the phone acts like a sighted friend > and describes the man sitting at the table. The iPhone even has a KNFB > reader. Open the app and it converts the phone into a scanner, so if > someone hands Mani a visiting card at a party, his smartphone reads it > out to him right then. > > *What never changed…* > > Mani lost his eyesight 24 years back. Sometimes, he says, he has dreams > where he is walking down a beautiful green slope and he can see; after > he wakes up he remembers it is a scene from a trip he had made to the > Sabarimala temple with his uncle many years back that still remains in > his memory. “At those moments, dreams and reality merge,” he says wistfully. > > “An advantage I have over people who are born blind is that I have > images in my mind that I can fit into a framework. I understand what > words like wince or blush mean. If I didn’t have these memories, I might > have still been technically sound but I couldn’t have been a perceptive > writer. But then I could see once and now those people never age in my > mind. My mother is 65 now. She often complains that she is getting old, > her skin is sagging, there are wrinkles lining her face; but I tell her > that to me, she will always be 40, which was how I last saw her,” Mani > smiles. “Some things will never change for me.” > > L Subramani is a senior sub editor with the ‘Deccan Herald’. He was > affected with Retinitis Pigmentosa at 15 and had to experience gradual > loss of vision in three years that left him totally blind. He is > currently involved in setting up a support system for patients who > experience progressive or sudden vision loss. A part of his book > proceeds go there. You can buy book here <http://bit.ly/1lVtnM1>: > > Message from Mani: If you are someone who needs personal help to cope > with blindness, a little friendly chat about things that bother you or > just an ear to listen to your fears and frustrations, please don’t > hesitate to get in touch. I’ve been through that and I can help. Just > leave your questions and if you don’t want to give your name, that’s fine. > > Contact Mani at: [email protected] > > > > Register at the dedicated AccessIndia list for discussing accessibility of > mobile phones / Tabs on: > http://mail.accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/mobile.accessindia_accessindia.org.in > > > Search for old postings at: > http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ > > To unsubscribe send a message to > [email protected] > with the subject unsubscribe. > > To change your subscription to digest mode or make any other changes, please > visit the list home page at > http://accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/accessindia_accessindia.org.in > > > Disclaimer: > 1. Contents of the mails, factual, or otherwise, reflect the thinking of the > person sending the mail and AI in no way relates itself to its veracity; > > 2. AI cannot be held liable for any commission/omission based on the mails > sent through this mailing list.. >
Register at the dedicated AccessIndia list for discussing accessibility of mobile phones / Tabs on: http://mail.accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/mobile.accessindia_accessindia.org.in Search for old postings at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ To unsubscribe send a message to [email protected] with the subject unsubscribe. To change your subscription to digest mode or make any other changes, please visit the list home page at http://accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/accessindia_accessindia.org.in Disclaimer: 1. Contents of the mails, factual, or otherwise, reflect the thinking of the person sending the mail and AI in no way relates itself to its veracity; 2. AI cannot be held liable for any commission/omission based on the mails sent through this mailing list..
