My journey

From the my childhood days onwards itself, I was very jolly and enthusiastic person. I am the person who always makes others to laugh by cracking jokes and make myself happy. My days were going in such a way with full of joy and happy. Gradually, I have finished my school days. On other hand, my parents always wanted to see me as an Engineer from my school days itself. As per their dream, they put me in the college in maths group. I converted my parents dream into my dream and worked very hard to get engineering seat in my college days. Finally, I cleared my engineering entrance exam and got engineering seat. My parents and myself jumped with full of joy for achieving dream. I had taken electronics and communications branch in engineering and stepped into college. My life had become very busy with lot of subjects in each semester. I used to have very tough time to understand the depth of subjects.

The days were going in such a way till my 3rd year of engineering. One day, I found that I was not able to see properly in the night time. I was thinking that it would be small issue and then consulted doctor. The local doctor suggested to go to the bigger hospital. I consulted with bigger doctors and they diagnosed my problem as Retina pigmentosa. Doctors explained that the person who is having retina pigmentosa in eyes, person looses full vision over a period of time and will become totally blind. My dad and I were very shocked with doctors explanation. However, we did not lose the any confidence and ignored what doctors said and continued my education by hoping that nothing will happen to me.

After a few days, I started losing my vision as doctors said. My vision deterioration was so rapid which means I became almost totally blind (from sighted) in 2 years of span of time. At present, I have light perception. The days my vision deterioration began, I was pursuing my final year of Engineering. Unfortunately,, I could not manage my final year exams. The days when I lost my complete vision, I lost confident on myself and thinking I could do nothing in future with this blindness. Due to lack of awareness, I was sitting idle at my home for 2 years.

Later, with the help of my parents and friends I got to know that the Visually Impaired can do lot of things. That’s how I got to know Visually Impaired can access the computer with the help of screen readers such as JAWS. Soon after I knew that, I came to Banglore to get rehabilitation in mobility as well as learning computer with the help of screen reader. As per the plan, I joined mobility and computer trainings at NAB, Banglore. I successfully completed my trainings in 6 months of time and got back all my confidence. After my completion of training, I was looking for jobs to build my career by stepping into Enable India. Fortunately, I have started my career in Enable India itself and worked about 3.8 years. Later, I have joined in SAP Labs, banglore, India as Accessibility Engineer and worked for about 1.11 years. . After that, I joined  in Deque Software Pvt Ltd at Hyderabad as Senior accessibility consultant and worked for about more than 5 years. I am currently working with Phenom People at Hyderabad as principal accessibility engineer. Today I am very proud of myself because I am an independent and give lot of moral support to parents and friends.

 

 

16 Replies to “My journey”

  1. Suman, inspirational and motivational journey. Your determination,strong desire and your family & friend’s support are appreciated.
    Wish you all the best for future endeavors.

    Keep Going !

  2. Wow Suman. Though I had subscribed to your blog a while back, only today I got to read about you. I’m extremely proud of you. You are an inspiration. I work for SAP (California) as an Accessibility engineer as well. Hope you had a gratifying tenure at SAP Bangalore.

    1. Thank you Anu for those words and great to know that you work for SAP. Yes, i had fantastic time at SAP in the past!

    2. Hey Anu, Good that you commented on my journey and this helped me to relook my post and realized that i did not update my latest company details. i updated my journey post with latest company details now.

  3. Hi Suman, it’s Caren’s son, Callum. My mum sent me this article and I’ve just read it. I just want to say how much of an inspiration you are. I can’t imagine how scary it must have been to lose your eye sight in a short amount of time and I don’t blame you for locking yourself away in your room for 2 years. I have full respect for you getting back up and your story should be shared to many more people.

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