The bigger hurdle

The hurdles faced by a person with disabilities are never just about their physical situation. So when Ajay Kumar Kochiri, a Hyderabad-based senior engineer at Bharat Heavy Electricals first started losing his hearing at the age of 15, he never wanted to wear a hearing aid because of “what people would say”. But now, after winning the Best Employee Award for the Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities programme, he is happy to share his story.

“My friends would tell my brother that I couldn’t communicate properly. Even when they tried calling me from a very close range, I wouldn’t be able to hear or respond to them,” he says about the first days of his hearing loss. After multiple visits to doctors and audiologists who recommended that he wore a hearing aid, his first thought wasn’t about his condition but about what people would think about him.

And while pursuing a BTech degree at JNTU in Anantapur, his fears of people’s perception of him were only confirmed when people would make fun of him during his first year at college. With a deteriorating condition, he went on to finish his Master’s in Computer Assisted Manufacturing from IIT Guwahati in 2009, and after switching between a few government jobs for a year, he joined BHEL as an engineer.

It was only here, he says, that he felt comfortable enough (and the need) to wear his hearing aid. In April 2014, following the advice of his doctors and listening to other’s testimonies, he decided to take the risk — a risk, because when Cochlear implant procedures fail, a person’s hearing loss is complete. Thankfully, today he can hear almost as well as a person with normal hearing.

“I never even used to be able to hear my son cry though he was sitting next to me,” he adds. Ajay says the support of his family and colleagues at work helped him think positively. “My wife always had to pay attention to my son all the time at home. But my family never expressed any annoyance or irritation at my condition. They were very supportive,” he says.