Unstoppable! He beat all odds to become a civil engineer

Bengaluru: He was born with severe to profound impaired hearing but with treatment being less advanced at the time, he did not get the attention he needed to correct it. That has however, not stopped 40-year-old Arun Kumar from going after his dreams and achieving them.

A successful civil engineer today, he is married and has a son, whom he loves to teach mathematics to.  When many in his condition would have given up hope of living life to the fullest,  Arun was determind to  become an engineer one day. “When in school I had a lot of problem understanding what the teacher said but  I  referred to books and grasped everything,” he recalls.

Arun  now uses a hearing aid, but he says it is not as good as getting a new age cochlear implant. “The hearing aid helps amplify sound but there is no clarity in what he hears,” says his wife Menaka.

Despite his condition, his seniors at his workplace don’t have trouble explaining their plans to him. “My seniors just draw their plans and ask me to work on them.  I am now used to getting things done and I complete some three or four designs with the help of my juniors,”  explains Arun.  Impressed by his efforts, his friends call him a genius.

While he has not let his hearing impairment come in the way of living a fulfilling life, Arun believes he could have done better if he had a cochlear implant when young.    “But I am really happy and satisfied even now. I am content with my life and never look at this impairment as a disability  which can stop me from achieving my dreams,”  he sums up.

Costly cochlear implants add to family trauma

Congenital hearing loss is hard to deal with as the treatment  despite being highly effective, comes at a whopping cost. Families, who have to deal with the trauma of children born with a hearing defect, have a hard time  coping financially with the problem as well.

It has been particularly difficult for Arun Kumar  and Menaka as both their children, 11-year-old Sripavan Kumar and two- year- old Jagan, were born with a hearing loss like him. Considering how expensive the treatment is, the couple was lucky to get the funds they needed from their  families.   “We were fortunate to get the money we needed from our parents,”  says,  Menaka Kumar.

The implant for each ear costs between Rs 5.8 lakhs to Rs 12.5 lakh,  excluding the the therapy and rehabilitations costs, according to  Mr Devaiah Kekada, a representative of a company which makes the  device used for a cochlear implant.

For  Sripavan and Jagan the implants have proved  a godsend. Both children go to a normal school and attend therapy sessions thrice a week. Unlike Tamil Nadu where such  implant costs are borne by the state government, there is no such scheme in Karnataka.”  “There is no government support here for such treatment,” regrets Mr Kekada.