When P.R. Pandi smiles, it reaches all the way up to his eyes. The former president of the Organisation for the Rehabilitation of the Blind in Tiruchi (ORBIT) has never considered his visual impairment as a burden he says, as he talks us through his 37-year career in the pioneering engineering workshop.
It's a story that inspires awe in the listener – of a man's determination to rise above his disability and distinguish himself in his chosen field.
Born in Veeravalasai village in the Sivaganga district in 1955, Pandi lost his sight to viral fever when still a teenager. He credits his widowed mother (Pandi's father died when he was seven) for encouraging him to pursue higher education despite his visual impairment.
Pandi went on to earn a diploma in mechanical engineering from a Chennai polytechnic. After qualifying in social work, he served with the Swedish Mission Hospital in Tirupattur for four years, working with differently-abled people in the surrounding villages.
He gives the example of his own daughter, Vimala Maheshwari, who was diagnosed with low-vision when she was in Standard III. With timely intervention, she was able to stay in mainstream education and consistently do well in exams. Today the double major graduate (economics and computer science) is working for at the Head Post Office as a postal assistant.
"Neither I nor my wife Shanmugavalli (who works as a nursing assistant in Tiruchi's Joseph Eye Hospital and has normal vision), have ever treated our daughter as a disadvantaged person." The couple also has a son P.Sivakumar, who works as a vocational instructor at the Spastics Society of Tiruchi.
Pandi feels organisations should go beyond merely equipping the differently-abled with vocational skills.
"We need to guide them on how to convert their newly earned skills into ways of earning a livelihood," he suggests.
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http://www.thehindu.com/features/education/careers/the-vision-to-succeed/article5100706.ece
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