Above equals but equal no more!!! 'Where lies equal opportunities'???

This blog is output of 10 mins conversation I had with Suresh Reddy, my Visually Challenged student, Qualified from IIM, Calcutta few months back!!!

Suresh Reddy, as I remember, rewinds my memory 9-10 years back, was my first formal Volunteering assignment. While working at IBM I was in parallel pursuing PGDBA from Symbiosis Centre for Distance Learning. Me and my friend Pradeepa (who joined IBM on same day) decided to do something worthwhile during weekends. We contacted Anna at iVolunteer whom I knew since my CA article ship days. She connected us to Samarthanam Trust for disabled where we used to go every weekend and teach a super dedicated, hard worker, visually challenged, very intelligent and confident boy Suresh Reddy who was doing his BBM. Teaching him in turn had benefited me a lot. I used to teach him some commerce subjects one of which was Income Tax. As he lost his eyes when he was in 7th standard, I actually used to teach him some formulae on his hand. He cleared his exam with good % and we were very happy that we did something good and worth it!!! Later after my return from US trip (where I had been on a short assignment through IBM) I had missed almost all PGDBA semester exams. The only paper left was Income Tax and I decided not to miss this opportunity of writing at least this one paper... Can you believe without any studies, I just glanced the book, appeared my exam and while I was in Exam hall I actually started recollecting all that I had taught to Suresh and wrote my exam very well. When the results were declared many people flunked in Income tax and to my surprise I scored 83 marks... Lesson learnt: Helping others is a great help to self!!! During my volunteering journey of teaching Suresh, I learnt many things like dedication, importance of commitment and communication, about disability and challenges faced and much more. It had helped me a lot personally... Post teaching him I got involved in many other social activities, joined iVolunteer, connected many volunteers to help Suresh and others... While we were busy and caught up in our lives Suresh always kept Pradeepa, Asha and self posted on his whereabouts. We always felt happy as he kept on succeeding in his life. He completed BBM, joined Sasken then worked at WIPRO and here came a day where his dream for years together of joining India’s Top most college came true... Yes!!! Suresh cleared his CAT and got admission in IIM, Calcutta. He did face challenges but as we all knew him, he came out of the same with flying colours.... None of us including Suresh actually imagined that hard part would start for him after he is out of IIM Calcutta successfully.... In last 3 months, I would have got some 15 calls from him where although he seemed Disturbed and depressed internally he was trying to pretend to be strong and trying to find networks who could help him get an interview fixed for Role THAT HE DESERVES.

His struggle is still on, this week he is taking help from few volunteers to revise some of subjects, so that he can appear Central Government related exams.... Sunday he has SAIL exam, next month RBI Exam and his struggle is on... While he is studying for all these exams and is utilising iVolunteer office space for Readers’ Service we had an interesting 10 mins chat yesterday, which infact led me to write this blog... I might not be able to put all that he said in structured manner but few points those came out were as below and ya believe me I am posting it, as is spoken by him....

Maam, see Maam, after being Qualified from IIM, I am back to studying again... What is CSR all about? Is it about giving money (5% of profit earned) or is it Encouraging people from various background??? As part of CSR initiative can they take a day out to Evaluate “Qualified Disabled” as per their requirement??? Why can’t any company confidently say how many people hired are Disabled and Qualified and I am solely talking from perspective of “A Qualified Visually Impaired” “A Qualified VI” Maam. 90% of companies that came to IIM for campus interview did not accept my profile, just because I was VI.... Corporates talk about Equal Opportunities and claim to have been sensitized towards the issue, but the moment I say I am Visually Impaired, they hesitate and say currently there is no opening!!! Are they sensitised in true sense or are they ignorant or are they knowledgeable??? It’s just like a house, if I have to buy a House, even if I am Visually Impaired, if I can afford to buy it no one can stop me, but if I have to get a house on rent, seeing my impairment people hesitate to!!! So I don’t know finally.... “Who will trust me???”

This is story of Suresh, who completed his PGDM in area of specialisation is HR and marketing, from IIM Calcutta, is also having 6 years of experience in the HR domain like Recruitment,  Training and development and Knowledge management before joining IIM. As he is Visually Impaired his visually impairment is haunting job selection process, though he has gained competence to work in corporate environment. Also he is specifically seeking job in HR area. His other achievements include:

• Finalist, Strategic Marketing Workshop competition conducted by Chennai Alum Chapter, IIMC
• Represented Karnataka in Athletics at National Sports, 2001
• Awarded “Best Disciplined Student” and “All Rounder” for 2 consecutive years (1999, 2000) at SRMAB, Bangalore.
• Featured in CNN-IBN, Indian Express, Pagalguy.com to highlight his achievement as the first 100% visually impaired student across all IIMs.

It’ll be great, if someone could interview him for above role ignoring his Disability (which has Work Place Solutions) and if there is a challenge apart from disability hep him understand and overcome that challenge...
 
There are many people like Suresh in our country!!! I would end this here with a hope to see inclusion becoming a process and with a request, please “Don’t Sympathise But Empathise”