CHANDIGARH, Feb 25: "Fourth row from the top, fifth key from left...F, third row from the top and fourth key from the right...O,'' S...
Written by JATIN GANDHI
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CHANDIGARH, Feb 25: "Fourth row from the top, fifth key from left…F, third row from the top and fourth key from the right…O,” Sham Sunder, calculates carefully, his fingers travelling on the keyboard and pressing just the right keys. The speakers resound in American accented English, "Open file".
Sham Sunder, now 31 and enrolled for PhD at the Department of Political Science, Panjab University, has just installed a computer in his room in the PU Boys Hostel number 5. The machine with its American Software "Kurzeweil 100” loaded in the hard-disk can now scan an entire book in about an hours time and read it out to Sham when he wants."It can store between 4,000 to 5,000 books,” he beams. All these years, he had relied on friends who would read out books to him and he would assimilate the contents with near perfect memory. Sham Sunder is visually handicapped since birth.
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A hostel resident of the PU campus since 1992, Sham joined the campus as a gold medalist in Political Science Honours from the DAV College. Here too he topped this time in MA. "But I did not get a medal, because I scored 58.9 per cent. I had boycotted a paper because my classmates felt that it should have been from within the prescribed syllabus".Sham has always been a fighter for rights. An active member of the Punjab chapter of the National Federation for the Blind and the campus unit president of the leftist All India Students Federation, he has been making representations to the University authorities since 1996 for introducing computer-related facilities for the blind and setting up a Braile section in the Panjab University library but with no more than patients hearings and assurances from the authorities coming forth and time to do his doctorate, he went ahead and shelled out Rs 70,000 to buy the machine that "will save all the time.” But he will continue to demand a Braile section in the library and computer related facilities on the campus for the blind for he knows where there’s a will, there’s a way’!
University Alumni Association revived After years of near dormancy, it’s time for revival for the Punjab University Alumni Association. Besides a colourful cultural evening last week in which the 75+ PU alumni who have been persons of prominence in society, the association has also come up with a directory of alumni and there whereabouts.
