I wanted this post to hit the blog when I turn 25yrs on 23rd January, but I was not able to finish putting all my thoughts & my feelings. 2011 was overwhelmingly was a great year for me and I was in Mumbai when I celebrated my 24th Birthday. I thought long & hard to post about it, but some how it never materialized in to words. When I started my journey 3yrs in Bangalore I know it is going to be different than the life I lived in Hyderabad, but the life here is so vibrant & colorful it made my challenges look small.
I some where read that if you are growing old there is another way to consider it, the young in you am dying. I don’t know if I am growing old or the young in me is dying, but I know that there are some things which never changes, I meant learning’s. Only learning’s through out my life has kept me alive in this competitive world. I worked hard each minute to match my speed with this competitive world & I applied each learning which I took from my life.

I knew that my life journey is not going to be neither easy nor tough; it is going to be hard because with out effort, dedication, patience & willingness to learn through every phase I cannot achieve what I wanted. I need to work harder than average person to realize my dreams. I dream big because I got only one chance to live & I prefer to live it to the fullest by trying to do everything possible on the earth. I wanted to travel a lot, eat great food, tell & write stories & learn a lot about everything & anything. I know that I might sound mad and I am one, but there is this madness which drives me every day & brings a lot of motivation, energy and a new life each minute when ever I think of my dreams.

It is the possibility of a dream come true which makes life interesting & every minute when I chase my dreams I feel like a fighter who is on the battle field. Everyone think I am very positive & very optimistic, but that is not true always, I too panic & get depressed while I fight the challenges of my visual impairment. It is easy to accept that I will have a low vision and that vision might deteriorate gradually but that toughest challenge is while you make the next transition of slowly moving from the world of low vision into total darkness. I am not afraid of the dark but feared that I will not be able to travel as I dreamed. I need to learn a new way of seeing things that is through feeling & experiencing them.

On this birthday I realized that I have a job I like, a family who loves me a lot & friends who care for me more than I knew. I am thankful for what ever I have in my life & wanted to move a head with a new energy, motivation & optimistic thoughts that every thing will fall in place. It is a journey I chose to pursue & there is no looking back when the first step was taken & I just pray to all the forces of nature to help me.

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2. What is the difference between Learning and relearning
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Relearning is one of the toughest things which I find to adapt because for years together we follow a path, idea & a process in our life. If suddenly we are forced to change that process it will be a difficult time for any one & currently I am in that phase of life where I am juggling with the old & the new. Some of my friends even made statements like it will be easy for you to adapt because you already know that some day you will face this day, that is true but did I know that it will be today or it will be tomorrow. I don’t expect to get up in the morning & find my self totally blinded & no one does. Yes I need to accept the truth & move on, but before it let me put this statement there is a war going on, Country A & B are well prepared for the war but still when the war hits both countries they suffer in spite of their well done preparations. Life is also the same I am prepared for the worse but when my deterioration hit me it hit me, it doesn’t matter if I know that I will be blind or not, the only thing matters to me is how will I have to move on from now. Do I know that I will arrive at this kind of situation in life, the truth is no. I never thought I will have to face these day’s of stress & confusion. I was worried, scared, stressed with wild thoughts, confused, angry with myself parents & god etc & yet I have the hope I will be able to manage it, but how was the question.

Yes I was slowly pulled into depression, not fully but partially. My friends & colleague’s observed that my usual cheerful mood & my smile were missing for a long time. One fine day one of my cab mate said “Raghava if you don’t mine shall I say something? I said yes & she responded like this, I travelled in the same cab with you couple of times & what I observed that your usual cheerful smile is missing & you look like a cold hearted person without it. I was stuck & immediately understood that unconsciously I my worry on the deterioration is pulling me into depression. I wanted to get rid of this situation & I understood this is happening because I wanted to experience my dreams & if I lose my vision I will be forced to give up on couple of them. I always wanted to go on a travel, see the world, and understand the history, culture & customs etc but now I might not be able to see the world was my worry.

They were tough times & if any thing helped me to come out of it is hope, faith & constant observations of my self. I wanted to get out of it & until I made the effort everything looks gloomy, so I decided to go on trekking, spend a lot of time with friends, went out for movies, parties & I even got close to a cousin brother whom I never got in touch during my stay in Bangalore. It made all the difference in the world being with people & I understood how much these relationships matter. I don’t say don’t get depressed or worry please go a head experience the feeling during the tough times of life & try to learn from those experiences, because nothing goes wrong without our notice & if we do a small change doing some analysis we can get things right before it is too late. In my case the mistake is to spend very little time with friends & time for myself. Ran behind my goals & ambitions like a mad man where I hurt my health & mental ability.

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Change is always scary because we always don’t know how to deal with change and yet it comes into our life without any intimation or invitation. I think I finally has to change the way I live my life which I always thought is the most interesting part because I love all the challenges which my visual impairment throws at me and I like fighting with them. But I am tired playing the game where I made the task tough when it can be done easily by just applying some simple methods. I need to change a lot of my habits to make my life easier and need to ease little with my weird ideas of experimenting with life.

I decided to be more organized when it comes to designing my house & belongings. I never thought I will do this, but I think the best way to have an easy life now is to keep everything organized. I never kept my clothes, papers, gadgets & any of my belongings in my house organized. I know where I kept them and I always thought I can find them easily, but recently I kept my HP speaker set somewhere and forgot where I kept it. After searching for 2day’s also I am still unable to find it and finally I realized that I need to be more organized. I need to keep my belongings at one place and must be able to find them with out any trouble when ever I want.

My father always told that I have to be more organized and I always thought to my self, there iss no fun in that if everything is organized/ready there is no challenge and with my visual impairment I find it interesting to search my belongings because I keep stumbling onto things which I thought I will never find them or lost them. I think the fun time is up for a while now, I wanted to be more organized and I am going to start practicing this by taking some baby steps. This weekend I am going to clean my house and keep the belongings in their respective places, so that it will be easy for me to access and also for others. I know that I need to make this shift and see what I can learn from this small change in life.

Ps…I am sure that each one of you might have made some small changes in your life which might have impacted either in a small or big way…Do share those with me here in comments section.

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Today just when I was going through couple of my blog posts I just got stick to this post for a while “ Are you Thankful for What You Have” which I wrote during last year. For a minute I was lost in thoughts and was unable to concentrate on anything because for a long time I knew one or the other day I need to face the truth that I might be totally blind, I knew this 10yrs back when doctor told me that it might take 1yr or it might take 10yrs for the vision to deteriorate.

Today I am stuck with the reality of life, I am losing my vision and finally I realized it. slow deterioration is very tough to spot and it took a long time for me to understand that I am not able to see things which i saw earlier and I got really worried, angry, frustrated with the thought of losing my vision totally. I stopped realizing how much my vision has helped me all these 10yrs to do various things which are played an important role for my success today. Even though it was little it helped me to see the world from a closer perspective which enabled me to acquire a lot of courage and belief in my self. It changed me from what I am to what I became and I am sure without my Eye Sight I would have not made all this forward.

I decided not to concentrate on what I am losing, instead I want to enjoy the every moment of my vision to the fullest. I want to thanks my eye’s for showing me the “Good, Bad & Ugly” of this universe. I just wished if I got more time to spend time enjoying the glory of able to see the world and I feel my eye’s saying me we can still show you the world from a different perspective and don’t forget only you can see the unseen because you are going to change and going to be different from now on. A better person than before, a person who sees and does things differently. Not many are blessed with this rare opportunity of living life differently, so thank us for what ever we have shown you and what ever we taught you.

It is tough to accept, but not impossible so move on and go on your journey of life. You still got a blur vision so use it also to the fullest and see what you can learn are the words that I heard in my dream. With this I wanted to thank my Eye Sight for all that it has done till date and move on with my life.

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My daily routine is to get up at 6:30 AM go for a run and then fetch breakfast at Manas Tiffin center which is walkable distance to my house and the park. Today also I went to the tiffin center and entered the place which is not much crowded at 07:30 and started ordering the breakfast at the counter. Suddenly I hear a women’s voice excuse me “can’t you see? Are you blind?”, first I was confused and then I understood she was referring to me. Her voice is cold with anger and I did not understand why she is furious and I realized that when I entered the tiffin center I might have accidently brushed her with my hand as she is very near to the place where I came from. I showed my cane and I think she understood that I am really blind, she just told sorry and went off.

When she asked can’t you see? Are you blind? Unknowingly tears rolled in my eye’s and then my mind told I am not suppose to cry and suddenly tears stopped. I took my parcel and while I was leaving she came again and said that she is facing to the other side and talking to her friend so she did not realize that I cannot see. Then I understood that it was not my hand, leg or cane which touched her, it was my over sized fat jacket which might have brushed. Because if I am aware that I touched someone while I am moving in public I always make sure that I apologize, but here I did not even feel it to my senses.

How did I feel when she asked that question so rudely?
First I had an uneasy feeling about something, as if my heart is twisted and then a surge of anger burst into my blood. In the first instance my unconscious mind told me to say “fuck you can’t you see that I really cannot see” and my consciousness told not to talk anything. As soon as I came back home I gave a call to my sister and she cheered me up saying that today I enlightened a person with a lot of awareness on disability which even cheered me up. That’s true, controlling a minute of anger has made my day more cheerful.

PS…These kind of experiences has happened a lot of times while I was studying in college, but in Bangalore along with my cane I never was in some kind of situation like this, so got hot headed quickly.

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Moving to Bangalore is one of the best decisions that I ever made in my life. I was confused and have no clued what I really wanted to do with my life that is when the opportunity at Enable India opened up.

After my post why I live alone in Bangalore I thought a lot and decided to write this post

5things I learned after moving to Bangalore

Using the cane

First important thing I realized after I moved to Bangalore is to move around freely and I found that is only possible if I learn how to use the white cane. I know that I am blind and cannot see, but how I can I convey the same message to other’s on the road and I got lost while I was trying to find my way to the hostel, so I decided to get the cane and do the necessary training. It was a hard decision to make because I never considered that I would require it and felt bit uncomfortable when I started using it. People look at you as if you landed from another planet and if there is any group there will be a murmur and short talk or a laugh. Soon I mastered using the cane and I was all independent travelling all over Bangalore through public transport. In Hyderabad this would have not been possible as I got a car and a driver to take care.

Attending events and metes

While I was in Hyderabad I never attended any event because I was scared and felt shy with regard to my disability. I always use to think what will other’s think about me if I bump into them or ask for any kind of help. First event I attended in Bangalore is the Indiblogger meet and I felt comfortable and started going to blogger meets and other events which interested me. It was tough at the first and then I started learning new methods of networking, talking to people around and asking for help. It was my shyness and fear which pulled me back and I mastered it slowly in last 2yrs. Still I feel uncomfortable when I walk into any event but I slowly try to get control of my situation and try to make my way out of my worse fears. Any how once you attend couple of events in Bangalore you keep meeting at least one person whom you already met in the previous event or on any social media channel, so it is easy once I find one person whom I know.

Asking for help

As a person with visual disability I always need help while I travel or step out of my house for some or the other reason. While I am in Hyderabad I use to feel shy asking for help, but when I landed in Bangalore a friend who is also visually challenged told me that if you want to be independent in Bangalore the first thing you need to learn is how to ask for help without any hesitation. I tried couple of times and failed, but my friend took me out and trained me. Slowly I started asking for help and today I am comfortable saying I am a blind person and need help to catch the bus or cross the road. Some times you get the help and sometimes you don’t so I keep trying.

Managing the finances is one of the most important things which I learned after I moved to Bangalore. When I first came down to Bangalore I was careful enough not to spend all my money and use to make a complete note of daily expenditure. After I got into work I learned how to pay my phone, broadband and current bills. While I am in Hyderabad I have a fixed amount of money in my pocket and my sister sorted out the money for me, but in Bangalore I have no clue how much I got in my pocket and how to identify the coins and notes. But slowly I found my own way of identifying the notes and coins by feeling the size and today I can easily identify my money with out any problem. This is helping me to process any small transactions without any hesitation or else earlier I use to only give 100rupee notes for any kind of transaction and come home with all the change, sit and count all the money slowly and then sort them out.

I always thought that watching movies, going to parties & pubs, spending time with friends is a waste of time, but Bangalore crowd has turned and proved me wrong. Once I got the taste of Bangalore night life along with couple of friends now I spend a lot of my weekend entertaining my self by one or the other way. This helped me to improve my relations with a lot of people and I made a lot of new friends. I learned that there is no point in achieving the goals if I did not enjoy the work and one cannot be successful all alone by himself.

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From last couple of months there are lot of things which are worrying me and all my motivation levels are low am trying to keep my self occupied and trying to be cheerful and trying to ease out my stress and worry. I know that the magical word motivation is lost in my life and it is just the matter of time that I get back my motivation, confidence and optimism.

I am lost and need the ray of light to show me the path before I move forward and the best way is to first come out of stressand frustration.

going for a morning walk or a run is helping me a lot to blow out my stress because once I move out of my house into the park I can feel the nature and fresh air around me all the trees, flowers, birds, children who are playing reminds me that there is hope and aallways a new day to start again.

I am trying to immerce my self into the world of meditation, so as to reduce my mental stress , anger and trying to be more focused on my goals.

I am spending more time with friends during weekends and trying not to be alone. If I am alone for few hours also I feel lonely, unhappy, frustrated etc. so I am trying to spend more time with friends where I am engaged and all my thoughts are blocked.

Watching movies, talking to friends over phone, going out to restaurants & malls are considered as unproductive in my view, but today they seem to be helping me a lot to overcome my stress levels.

I know that my stress & worry is not allowing me to take conscious decisions wih regard to what ever I want to do, but I want to make some baby steps during these tough times and see to that I don’t loose the fire, confidence & motivation totally.

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I am always a strong believer of the book “The Secret” and its laws. When I came to Bangalore during 2009 and started living alone I wanted to keep my self occupied and want to make the best use of my time. My sister Sirisha is a voracious reader and she suggested it’s time that I start reading more books and improve my English language. I never even read a story book other than my regular academic books. I was reluctant at first but then I wanted to give it a try, she asked me to start with the book “The Alchemist” and I downloaded an Audio version of the book from the web.

It was on a Sunday evening during November 2009 when I sat down to cut vegetables and getting ready for an awesome cooking experiment I thought to play the Audio Book while I was working. I fell in love with the book and read the book more than 3times on the same day.

Here are some of the quotes from the book which I really love,

“It’s the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting.”

“And, when you want something, the entire universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.”

“Intuition is really a sudden immersion of the soul into the universal current of life.”

“When someone makes a decision, he is really diving into a strong current that will carry him to places he had never dreamed of when he first made the decision”

“There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure.”

“Every search begins with beginners luck and ends with the victor are being severely tested.”

“When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too.”

“When you want something with all your heart, that’s when you are closest to the Soul of the World. It’s always a positive force.”

“Courage is the quality most essential to understanding the Language of the World. “

“To realize one’s destiny is a person’s only obligation.”

“When you are loved, you can do anything in creation. When you are loved, there’s no need at all to understand what’s happening, because everything happens within you.”

“Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second’s encounter with God and with eternity

“Remember that wherever your heart is, there you will find your treasure. You’ve got to find the treasure, so that everything you have learned along the way can make sense. “

“All you have to do is contemplate a simple grain of sand, and you will see in it all the marvels of creation. Listen to your heart. It knows all things, because it came from the Soul of the World, and it will one day return there.”

“The alchemists spent years in their laboratories, observing the fire that purified the metals. They spent so much time close to the fire that gradually they gave up the vanities of the world. They discovered that the purification of the metals had led to a purification of themselves.”

“I learned that the world has a soul, and that whoever understands that soul can also understand the language of things. I learned that many alchemists realized their destinies, and wound up discovering the Soul of the World, the Philosopher’s Stone, and the Elixir of Life. But above all, I learned that these things are all so simple they could be written on the surface of an emerald.”

“In his pursuit of the dream, he was being constantly subjected to tests of his persistence and courage. So he could not be hasty, or impatient. If he pushed forward impulsively, he would fail to see the signs and omens left by God along his path.”

Till date I read this book more than 20times and still skim through couple of chapter’s and lines when ever I feel I need a new inspiration.

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I met Lakshmi Rebecca during the search marketing summit and she told that she would like to do a video with me for her You Tube show “Chai With Lakshmi” and I was the 2nd person to get interviewed for her show.

Meet the 24 year old Digital Strategist who is legally blind. Google and his family were his life-line to normalcy.

Raghava’s visual impairment was only the beginning of his expanding vision and bigger dreams. He lives independently and takes time out from his day job
at IBM for keeping abreast with the world of Digital Strategy. Raghava is a truly empowered individual. He is a charming young man with lot of grit and
dynamism. And his is a fight for a normal life, a life without the discrimination that the disabled suffer.

Raghava is a friend and inspiration. Someone who went through over 40 interviews in the span of 9 months and faced the kind of rejection that most of us
would cringe to imagine.

Raghava believes in self-empowerment and is a die-hard optimist. Put him in a crowd and he’s like a firework, can’t miss him! He is not differently-abled,
but definitely-abled. I can’t think of enough ‘abled’ people where as determined and dynamic. And getting to where he is today meant fighting depression,
loneliness and bullying.

Raghava is most grateful to his family and
Enable India
for supporting him in empowering himself.

If you are an NGO who is supporting differently-abled people who are unable to hear or see this episode, write in to me at info@chaiwithlakshmi.in I would
be happy to send you a transcript of this episode in order that it can be printed in Braille.  I’d love for this positive message to touch many more lives,
like it has my own.

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I never knew that math is easy to understand, learn and implement. If only all this was available when I was a kid, I would have quit my schooling and would learn all from the web. Still today I think all the Mathematics teacher’s in schools are insane, but after watching this talk I am thinking to join the portal and start learning the basics of Math. I was never good at Math and I don’t know if I can ever master that wonderful subject.

After watching this video I found that I never hated the subject, people who taught me did not do it in the right way.

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