New years gift.
As I look back to the past year of service to visually impaired students I ask myself ,did I actually help any one?
I gave money to a student to buy her text books to pursue B'ed course,ticked the expected questions [I am quite an expert at this ,since I have been giving exams after exams till 24 years of age] ,read out ,explained English and Tamil lessons to P.G students,read out general knowledge and current affairs to a group of students who had applied to various competitive exams,filled up endless forms,attested them, and read out questions and answeres in the English portions of Net [U.G.C] and SLET exams.All of them thanked me politely at the end of each session.Yet I had a nagging doubt at the back of my mind that perhaps they were paying me lip service.All of them had completed their B ed and were in all probability passing time till they would be appointed to the highly coveted post of govt teacher with a starting salary of 20,000 Rs via the 2 % reservation assured to the physically handicapped.Until I was presented with a request from Muthu to read to him question and answers to qualify to the post of assistant in Banks .
He has not done Bed and felt that he was too old at age 32 to do so .The only option for acquiring a permanent job, open to him was to secure jobs in banks, L.I.C,Railways and post offices which are currently on a massive recruitment drive and are conducting competitive exams to choose the right candidates.
Muthu's English is very good though he hails from a obscure village in the southern districts.He was working at a B.P.O. office at nights and yet tirelessly visited the premises of the association of college graduates for the blind during the day for companionship and to update his knowledge through readers.
He asked me to explain the maths and logical part . My brain had gone rusty through constant disuse and the only maths I did for the past several decades was counting money and later sodexo coupons the contribution of Vidat to the household kitty while paying for goods purchased, even there I was liable to err,some sincere sales men handing me back the extra cash [ god knows how many quietly pocketed my munificence ]. I never buy from pavement shops as that entailed bargaining which meant that I had to divide and subtract a mental activity I wished to avoid.
But this man who was trapped in total darkness having but two slits in place of eyes and had requested me and I was visiting them to render service.There fore like night follows day I had to tax my brain which was chugging along in a leisurely pace like the toy train -Blue mountain express [Nilgiris]and to goad it to tear maddeningly at the speed of super fast Rajdhani Express.
I spent a whole week splitting my head that groaned and creaked at my self imposed goal of trying to grasp the nitty gritties of the long forgotten fractions, decimals and percentages.I spent one whole day trying to figure the position of that vexatious decimal point whilst adding or subtracting huge figures. Then I got entrapped in the confusing maze of directions .If x travels 5 miles north and turns left and again travels 2 miles etc etc what is his final position?How are these complicated directions[, probably helpful to ancient sea mariners] help a person working in a office where his maximum journey could be from his cubicle to the common room within few meters ?Do assistants working in banks ,post offices speak in code languages? It seems so as there were questions after questions quizzing one's memory regarding the place of letters in the alphabetical order.,and substituting one alphabet with another to mean something else !.Having somewhat succeeding in oiling the cogs and setting it in motion I entered the arena.
In the month of July Chennai is hot .Muthu and I sat in the cool shade of a huge clump of trees .I read out the questions and explained it.Muthu is very intelligent and he grasped the basics quickly but he took agonisingly 15 minutes to solve a single question as he would work it out in his mind as most visually impaired people though skilled in braille are wont to. But I sat through waiting for him to work it out in his own way .
The succeeding week I asked him to use his braille to work out the sums . He was reluctant to do so .Then I pointed out that in open competition these sums would be done in a minute the allotted time to each sum by the normals [an euphemism given to people like us---sighted by the V.I.] as they would be using rough paper and pen to do the calculations. And that if he wanted to compete with them it would do him good to shed his inhibitions.I came up against a stone wall which I succeeded in breaching by enquiring whether he was Shakuntala Devi the astonishing human calculator . He was one of the very few V.I. who has heard about her.He laughed and started using his braille.Slowly and steadily he started picking up speed and when I clocked him next, the margin between him and normals of the time taken to solve problems had narrowed considerably .
At the end of the month we had covered most of the syllabus and as I had another student waiting for my service and Muthu had by then secured the services of Engineering students studyingat M.I.T., I took leave. At which he burst out ''M'am no reader[ that is NSS volunteers from colleges ,educated house wives,voluntary retirees from banks and senior citizens ] has ever had the patience to explain the syllabus,format and types of questions asked .They usually select a page and read on and on for an hour and hurry away satisfied at performing their duty to the disabled without bothering to clear my doubts ".Then he said" Ma'am one knows sugar is sweet only by tasting it and not because some one said so.Only you had the patience to hear me out and clear my doubts.I will pass the exam and one day I will become a manager" .He didn't expressly thank me in words but it was directly pouring from his heart.
This unspoken gratitude was the best reward for the services I had rendered to the V.I.for the past one and half years and all the stress I endured in that process seemed worth wile.
Six months later at 8 in the morning Muthu who had not once rung me up till then was on the phone . He sounded excited and happy . He said" Ma'am I have been appointed as assistant in a post office after clearing the written exam and interview. I'll be joining next week .Thank you I can never forget your help.At my protest ,at this flattery he reiterated "You gave me the confidence to compete which nobody did".And hung up after receiving my best wishes.
That day was January 1 2010. It is by far the best New year gift I have ever received.
I suppose if one helps even a single person and make a difference to his life that is 'service'.
I gave money to a student to buy her text books to pursue B'ed course,ticked the expected questions [I am quite an expert at this ,since I have been giving exams after exams till 24 years of age] ,read out ,explained English and Tamil lessons to P.G students,read out general knowledge and current affairs to a group of students who had applied to various competitive exams,filled up endless forms,attested them, and read out questions and answeres in the English portions of Net [U.G.C] and SLET exams.All of them thanked me politely at the end of each session.Yet I had a nagging doubt at the back of my mind that perhaps they were paying me lip service.All of them had completed their B ed and were in all probability passing time till they would be appointed to the highly coveted post of govt teacher with a starting salary of 20,000 Rs via the 2 % reservation assured to the physically handicapped.Until I was presented with a request from Muthu to read to him question and answers to qualify to the post of assistant in Banks .
He has not done Bed and felt that he was too old at age 32 to do so .The only option for acquiring a permanent job, open to him was to secure jobs in banks, L.I.C,Railways and post offices which are currently on a massive recruitment drive and are conducting competitive exams to choose the right candidates.
Muthu's English is very good though he hails from a obscure village in the southern districts.He was working at a B.P.O. office at nights and yet tirelessly visited the premises of the association of college graduates for the blind during the day for companionship and to update his knowledge through readers.
He asked me to explain the maths and logical part . My brain had gone rusty through constant disuse and the only maths I did for the past several decades was counting money and later sodexo coupons the contribution of Vidat to the household kitty while paying for goods purchased, even there I was liable to err,some sincere sales men handing me back the extra cash [ god knows how many quietly pocketed my munificence ]. I never buy from pavement shops as that entailed bargaining which meant that I had to divide and subtract a mental activity I wished to avoid.
But this man who was trapped in total darkness having but two slits in place of eyes and had requested me and I was visiting them to render service.There fore like night follows day I had to tax my brain which was chugging along in a leisurely pace like the toy train -Blue mountain express [Nilgiris]and to goad it to tear maddeningly at the speed of super fast Rajdhani Express.
I spent a whole week splitting my head that groaned and creaked at my self imposed goal of trying to grasp the nitty gritties of the long forgotten fractions, decimals and percentages.I spent one whole day trying to figure the position of that vexatious decimal point whilst adding or subtracting huge figures. Then I got entrapped in the confusing maze of directions .If x travels 5 miles north and turns left and again travels 2 miles etc etc what is his final position?How are these complicated directions[, probably helpful to ancient sea mariners] help a person working in a office where his maximum journey could be from his cubicle to the common room within few meters ?Do assistants working in banks ,post offices speak in code languages? It seems so as there were questions after questions quizzing one's memory regarding the place of letters in the alphabetical order.,and substituting one alphabet with another to mean something else !.Having somewhat succeeding in oiling the cogs and setting it in motion I entered the arena.
In the month of July Chennai is hot .Muthu and I sat in the cool shade of a huge clump of trees .I read out the questions and explained it.Muthu is very intelligent and he grasped the basics quickly but he took agonisingly 15 minutes to solve a single question as he would work it out in his mind as most visually impaired people though skilled in braille are wont to. But I sat through waiting for him to work it out in his own way .
The succeeding week I asked him to use his braille to work out the sums . He was reluctant to do so .Then I pointed out that in open competition these sums would be done in a minute the allotted time to each sum by the normals [an euphemism given to people like us---sighted by the V.I.] as they would be using rough paper and pen to do the calculations. And that if he wanted to compete with them it would do him good to shed his inhibitions.I came up against a stone wall which I succeeded in breaching by enquiring whether he was Shakuntala Devi the astonishing human calculator . He was one of the very few V.I. who has heard about her.He laughed and started using his braille.Slowly and steadily he started picking up speed and when I clocked him next, the margin between him and normals of the time taken to solve problems had narrowed considerably .
At the end of the month we had covered most of the syllabus and as I had another student waiting for my service and Muthu had by then secured the services of Engineering students studyingat M.I.T., I took leave. At which he burst out ''M'am no reader[ that is NSS volunteers from colleges ,educated house wives,voluntary retirees from banks and senior citizens ] has ever had the patience to explain the syllabus,format and types of questions asked .They usually select a page and read on and on for an hour and hurry away satisfied at performing their duty to the disabled without bothering to clear my doubts ".Then he said" Ma'am one knows sugar is sweet only by tasting it and not because some one said so.Only you had the patience to hear me out and clear my doubts.I will pass the exam and one day I will become a manager" .He didn't expressly thank me in words but it was directly pouring from his heart.
This unspoken gratitude was the best reward for the services I had rendered to the V.I.for the past one and half years and all the stress I endured in that process seemed worth wile.
Six months later at 8 in the morning Muthu who had not once rung me up till then was on the phone . He sounded excited and happy . He said" Ma'am I have been appointed as assistant in a post office after clearing the written exam and interview. I'll be joining next week .Thank you I can never forget your help.At my protest ,at this flattery he reiterated "You gave me the confidence to compete which nobody did".And hung up after receiving my best wishes.
That day was January 1 2010. It is by far the best New year gift I have ever received.
I suppose if one helps even a single person and make a difference to his life that is 'service'.
posted by K.C. Sujata at
9:24 PM
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