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About me On the afternoon of June 13, 1971, birth of a baby girl took
place at a private nursing home in the suburbs of Mumbai. She was a
premature baby and weighed only 2.5 pounds. She was so tiny that she
could fit into one palm of her father. Who was this girl? Well, this
was me. I was named Jasmina by my parents, but fondly called Bulbul
by my loved ones. Schooling Then came the question of educating me. Like most Indians, my family also had this misconception that a physically disabled person was also mentally disabled, therefore they put me in 'Shashi Mamgalam,' a school for mentally disabled children. But soon the teachers of this school realized that I was very intelligent and would be better if I was put in a school where proper normal academic education was given to the physically challenged children like me. Soon after that I started going to the 'Children's Orthopedic Hospital' at Haji Ali, Mumbai for physiotherapy. Here my parents got to know that a part of this hospital had a primary level school for children like me. I started attending this school till third standard and then I joined 'Spastic Society of India', which is a SSC (Maharashtra Board of Secondary education) recognized school. Upon joining Spastic Society, I was given double promotion straight from third standard to fifth standard. In beginning I found this jump difficult to cope with, but learnt to manage well. I passed out my tenth standard in the year 1989 with a very good percentage and managed to get a third rank in my school. It was a proud moment for my teachers and especially for my parents who had worked very hard to bring me up to this level. Though I always went to a special school we had our unique classroom setup. First of all we had very few children in each class, as not many disabled children get educated in India. We had special educators as our teachers who were very patient with us, as they understood us and our needs too. The number of children in each class ranged from three and not more than ten. In my batch we were eight of us, with a perfect combination of four boys and four girls. In spite of our limitations, we were like all the normal kids, and a naughty bunch of classmates who had fun in their own way. We would do everything regular school going kids do, like we would imitate our teachers and make fun of them, and also bully our juniors! I still remember all those Diwali parties and Christmas parties held every year in the school. We also had different activities like sports day where we would have races like wheelchair race or banana eating race. We would have an annual function at the end of each academic year where all the students would perform on stage. I have also participated in inter school competitions like science exhibition. When I was in the eighth standard, I won the first prize in interschool competition. I really wish school days could come back again! Experiencing College Thereafter I joined St. Xavier's College, Mumbai. I did my graduation from here. I successfully completed my B.A. in political science in the year 1994. When I was in school, I was in a very protected environment. I was amongst the normal students for the first time. First six months of college were very lonely for me as none of the other normal students came forward to lend a hand of friendship to me as they thought I was very different from them. But gradually things started changing. They soon realized that I was no different from them and they accepted me as part of them. Thereafter there was no looking back. I have always been surrounded by loads of friends who have believed in me, raised my confidence time and again and have willingly given me a helping hand whenever I needed. What after graduation? After completing my graduation I was in the biggest dilemma of my life. I didn't know what to do with myself. Being the person that I am, I'm very ambitious, adventurous and wanted to make it big in life, more so because I knew my capabilities and knowledge very well. I did not want to waste my talent and also wanted to fruitfully contribute to the society. I wanted to be financially independent. To me financial independence for every individual is a very important aspect of life. With financial independence comes dignity, respect from others and self-confidence, and most importantly to me is my self individuality, my persona and my identity (which is very important for disabled people like me. So I request other people who are disabled or able to never give up till each one achieves this). But soon I also realized that commuting within the city was becoming a major obstacle with no disable friendly transport facilities available. I had to think of jobs that could be done from home. Initially I decided that I will give tuitions to school children but somehow the parents of the children I approached didn't trust my ability. But that did not affect me at all. My search for knowing more was drawing me towards computers and that time it was the most upcoming field. There were very few opportunities I was getting because it took time for people to trust in my abilities. But I seized every opportunity that came my way to satisfy my thirst of learning, knowledge and experience. I started to learn various computer applications and programming through private computer classes, tutors and self-learning. Learning to work on the computer was not an easy task for me. I type with only one finger of my left hand. One of the biggest hurdles that came in my way was pressing of two keys simultaneously. This problem was solved when I got hold an 'accessibility option' a DOS based software from Spastic Society. This allowed me to press one key at a time. This is an in-built feature that is available in all Windows Operating System now. Secondly since my hands are unsteady it is difficult for me to use a normal mouse, hence I use a special track ball mouse that doesn't slip out of my hand. For almost eight years I have worked as a freelancer on several projects for various prestigious companies. To begin with, I started working by taking up few typing and data entry assignments. Internet has been a boon for people like me. It has opened the world filled with opportunities to us with just a click of a button without having to step out of the your homes, something that was unimaginable about 25 years back. My first prestigious work assignment was preparing of an Indian Hotel Guide for Rediff Communications for their website www.rediff.com in June 1997. I started applying for programming job assignments through the Internet but strangely I ended up get writing assignments related to the Internet. May be god thought this was the best I could do. I began my writing career from February 1999 by writing website reviews for two computer magazines 'DQWeek' and 'DQChannelsIndia' of Cyber Media India Limited. While I was writing for these magazines I got an unexpected offer in September 2000 from www.webschooling.com a children's website reviewed by me. I have written 90 general knowledge articles of children's interest. Another highlight of my career is working for Datamatics Technologies Limited on their projects as Knowledge Associate since December 2002 whenever required. Already worked with them for two projects: - Editing and formatting of pre-published novels. 2. Content management - abstraction and indexing of articles on various subjects across diversity. I soon found that a Bachelor’s Degree was not sufficient in the competitive world, and so I opted for a two-year Masters degree in Sociology through Mumbai University and successfully completed my Master’s degree in June 2004. Today I proudly call myself an anghoota chaap (Thumb impression) post graduate. I am not able to write or sign as my hand movements are not steady enough when I hold a pen and try to write. Althrough my education I was allowed to dictate my exams with the help of writers who were mostly junior students.
I thank all the people for visiting my website. I hope this has been an enlightening experience to many and I in some way have connected with your life and helped you with my thoughts. If you believe in me then I have one message to convey... It is not about being able or disabled but it's the need to go on in life without self-pity and move on with self-respect and be truthful to your individuality. I firmly believe in the saying "Where there is a will there is way." Before you leave, I would like to know your thoughts. So please leave your imprints and suggestions in my guest book. You can read articles on me that were published a few years ago
from the links given below.
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