REACHING THE SKY WITHOUT WINGS

For those of us who have excuses over excuses to not dare to reach higher, do better and are just stagnant in our lives despite the potential, Akash Dhar is an example that no excuse is big enough when you put your heart and mind to something. Who is he and what has he done? Read on to find out.
A graduate in Humanities, from University of Jammu, Akash is currently pursuing Masters in History from Indira Gandhi National Open University. In 2015, when he graduated he qualified JUET but decided to rather go for diploma in Computer Applications. He went on to become Jammu and Kashmir’s first Website Accessibility Tester.

It made his dream to operate a Laptop, a reality which seemed almost impossible before and now he is striving to make it a reality for others like him. The harsh truth of Akash’s life is that, he is a visually impaired person right from birth. Now you can go back a reread first paragraph before you move forward.

Akash is also Vice President of Cricket Association for Blinds, J&K and has played at national level, where he met his favorite cricket player Rohit Sharma who is also visually impaired and played wonderfully in last Blind Cricket World Cup. The boy is also a Judo player and has participated in couple of competitions.

Born in March, 97, it took couple of months for Akash’s parents to learn that their child couldn’t see. Imagine the hardship that came with it for the Kashmiri migrant family with bleak source of income then.

Akash was a notorious kid, as per his mother and grew up studying among normal kids, because she decided to put him in a school for normal kids and take responsibility of his studies, along with his sister’s Parthi, who also has the same condition as Akash and is appearing in her 12th class examination this year. According to Akash’s mother the condition of the school for Blind made her disapprove it. She also shares that she didn’t want to compromise with her kids’ future.

Akash shares, “It was a better decision because he grew up among normal kids and learnt to deal in a better way. Nobody ever treated me differently or made me feel any less. I played; I had tiffs and fun like any other. I have made great friends for life during these years. That played a great role in shaping my individuality.”

That is why Akash stresses on our education system to be inclusive and disable friendly rather than herding disable students in poorly maintained “School for Disabled.” He also shares how challenging it was to get a scribe (a person who writes examination for students with disability) to write his board examination due to long list of formalities in JKBOSE while his counterparts in CBSE and other boards didn’t have to face such difficulties.

In college though, other than the initial hiccups, it went smoothly. According to Akash, it was refreshing and delightful that the institutions of Higher Education are more cooperative and adaptive.

Akash talks joyously about his friends. He shares, “I am blessed to have great friends. When I go out with them, nobody can access that I am visually impaired. They make me feel included all the time and are always there for help.”

Akash had no opportunity to get familiar with Braill, let alone study it until he went to Delhi for the computer diploma after graduating in 2015. There he also became aware of assistive technology. Akash got aware about National Association for the Blind (NAB), Delhi and that they conducts computer courses and other training programs for people like him back in 2014. So he decided to travel to Delhi and enrol in a 15-day computer training program but was guided to instead enroll in a four-month diploma course in computer training.

Meanwhile he also joined mobility training, English speaking classes and a course in personality development and in Akash’s admission, that changed his life and made him comparatively independent and improve his overall communication skills, boosted his confidence.

Thereafter, he was there in Delhi, on his own, without his mother’s help for the first time in life. He also stresses upon learning to be sensitive towards persons of special abilities, have infrastructure which is disable friendly and institutions that are inclusive of person with special abilities after his experience in the Capital city of India.

Now, he can read books, surf the internet, access social media platforms and navigate independently. After completing his course, he decided to become a Digital Accessibility Tester; so he took up online Digital Accessibility Training Program under NAB’s initiative, ‘Roshini ka Safar’ and became the first one to do so from the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir. In fact he is first from J&K to become a Digital Accessibility Tester.

Akash has been preparing and applying for government jobs to explore his options to become financially independent as well. For this he cleared NIELIT CCC exam and got certified. Now, he is preparing for examination and certification of Web Accessibility Specialist and Certified Professional in Accessibility Core Competency. He aspires to audit the important websites of the educational and other institutions and make them accessible for the disables.

Akash is an immensely grateful person who would consistently thanking his parents, especially his mother, the environment he grew up in and even the hardship. His journey also reflects the positive attitude his parent brought him up and helped him grow as a person. He is recipient of ‘Role Model’ award by Jigar Institute, Jammu. And truly he is a role model for all of us.

You can watch the video on all our social media platforms, where Akash talks about Braille Day, our shortcomings as a society towards persons of special abilities and technological advancements for such persons.