Tag Archives: life

My talk at TEDX Youth Chennai

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Ahhhhhh I know it has been a long time when I gave this talk & haven’t share any details of it here. I spoke at TEDX youth Chennai on November 19th 2010 on the occasion of world youth day where I share the story & journey of my life.

I haven’t share this talk here because I felt little embarrassed because what I decided to talk did not actually materialize, but I think it was well received by the students who came for the event. Finally I decided to share this talk here & see what will be the feedback.

Raghavendra Sathish Peri at TEDxYouth @Chennai – Talk on “Life – living and learning” from karthick on Vimeo.

Learning Accepting & Moving

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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.

Why I write a blog

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From last few days the thought of why I write a blog has kept me thinking. When I first started this blog I was never serious to write so much personal stuff, I thought to write about technology & some other things. But fortunately or unfortunately this blog has turned into a personal dairy in my life. A dairy which can be read by many & yet personal to me where I pour my thoughts, feelings, ideas etc. I gained a lot of loyal readers & supporters through this blog. I must say this first reader is my Dad, my aunt Meena, my sister sirisha & a lot of others.

Did I ever think to share so much about my self with any one was the thought which worried me for a while in last few days’? I never wanted to share my personal life with any one, but when I started this blog I became more social & interactive than before. Now I talk about my problems to people without hesitation & prefer being in the group. The transformation just happened, I did not even realize that I was changing & especially my blog is changing me constantly. In fact it is making my thoughts evolve & created a whole new personality of me.

When people meet me in events or family functions they say that we follow your blog & you inspire us a lot, I always ask this question to me why I inspire them? I still did not figure out, but I know that this blog has helped me personally a lot to be a better person & motivated me to push the boundaries, explore the new lands in life.
I blog & write because I want to do it because it eases me out of my frustrations, anger, loneliness & give me that stimulation to my thoughts, creativity & makes me feel that I am talking to a person who doesn’t interrupt me, judge me or give any free advise. no it is not a one way conversation that I have with my blog, I revisit my articles & read them again & again sometimes to get sense of what I have written. Some times I can feel that this blog is talking to me & there are my readers who comment, tweet or share my blog posts which create a conversation. I thank all my readers for the encouragement which is shown in one or the other way & I encourage you do keep your conversations alive.

What do you think about blogging & how did your blogging experience change you? Share in the comments section.

Time to change

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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.

Can’t you see? Are you blind?

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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.

5things I learned after moving to Bangalore

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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.

Steps To Reduce Sttress, Frustration & Anger

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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.