Not blinded by handicap, man gets PhD from IIT : Chennai

K Sriram is an example of what people with visual disabilities can achieve in life, if they have the necessary support. The commerce graduate from Loyola College who completed his MBA at IIM-Bangalore was among the 11 who received doctorates in management studies at the IIT-Madras convocation on Friday.

Leading the students' oath during the convocation, he says, was a "humbling" experience. Sriram is the third visually impaired person to have completed his PhD at IIT-Madras, after Dilip Veeraraghavan, who served as faculty in the humanities and social sciences department, and Sushma Agarwal Veeramani who got her doctorate from the mathematics department.

The 37-year-old started losing his sight to retinitis pigmentosa when he was four. "I did not lose it overnight, nor was I born blind," he says, recalling the deterioration of his vision from night blindness to losing his reading ability by the time he was 25. He can now only perceive whether he is in a dark room or one that has light. But, that did not diminish his capacity to read or dimmed his fascination for nature.

He uses the Jaws software to read content, search the internet and prepare documents. His PhD thesis on Sustainable Development through Corporate Social Responsibility and Related Business Practices is 333 pages long. "Science theses are expected to be crisper, but such lengths are accepted in management," he says. "I hope it won't be used as a pillow," he laughs. His thesis may, however, become study material for management students at IIT-M and other business schools.

Sriram, who spent six years on his thesis, says, "A fresher would have done it faster, but I learnt the subject better." He also had a stint in the corporate planning department of Infosys Technologies in Bangalore before leaving to pursue a PhD.

The road has not been smooth, but Sriram says there is "no reason to complain because he has lived a much more comfortable life than the average blind person". He said his teachers at Vana Vani School on the IIT-M campus gave him extra time when he wrote slowly, his father, former IC&SR dean at IIT-M and his friends at Loyola and IIM-B helped him catch up on academics.

Happy with his wife Padma and their two children, Sriram says he wanted to become a teacher. "Young people are inspired when they come across a competent teacher."


Source : TOI , 20th July 2013