Angelo Arasu, was born to a lower middle class family in a village in Tamil Nadu, and both his parents were literate. When he was 10 months of age, he contracted polio, due to which he lost the use of his legs. Due to difficulty in transportation, Angelo's parents schooled him at home till he was 9 years old. Then they found the Life Help Centre for the Handicapped in Chennai, where Angelo studied till the 7th standard.
After this, most of Angelo's high school education was self-learnt at home. He read all the subjects by himself and passed the board exams to get a high school diploma. Later he also completed a college course in Bachelor of Business Administration(BBA), and completed several computer courses. However, despite his talent, a job eluded him because of his handicap.
It was only later on, when Angelo found out about Amar Seva Sangam that he found his true calling. Angelo wanted very much to help other disabled people like himself. Therefore, he applied for a job as a teacher at Amar Seva Sangam, and got the job. Now, he is an accomplished teacher, who has won several awards, including the "Best Teacher Award for the Handicapped" from the state government of Tamil Nadu.
Right: Arasu receives his award for Best Teacher for the Handicapped in Tamil Nadu awarded by the State government of Tamil Nadu
|
|
Angelo Arasu was born into a lower middle class family in a small village in Tamil Nadu, India. Both his parents were educated and his father worked in the Fisheries Dept., while his mother worked as a physical education teacher,
before becoming a full-time homemaker to take care of her children. At 10 months of age, Arasu a severe bout of polio fever which left him with both of his lower limbs severely affected and he was unable to walk. Due to his disability, his parents had difficulty transporting to school and up to 9 years of age, he had not attended a single class of school. However, his parents being educated themselves, taught him basic literacy right at home. At 10 years of age, his parents sent him to Life Help Centre for the Handicapped in Chennai where he was housed, educated and rehabilitated. His physical condition improved tremendously, he was able to walk for the first time ever, with the use of calipers and crutches. He studied up to the 7th Standard at this institution, after which he returned to his home village. He credits this experience as being instrumental in building his self-confidence and sense of self-worth.
From the 8th Std. till 12th Std., he did home schooling and passed all board exams, in order to earn himself a high school diploma. He was a self-taught man purchasing the books and studying completely on his own. Only for English,
his aunt taught him and for Math, his family arranged for an outside tutor. After finishing high school, he did not know what to do with himself. Being disabled, he felt his opportunities were extremely limited and stayed at home for 2 years withering away his time. To help improve his physical condition, Life Help Centre for the Handicapped said they would arrange for him to get surgery, in order to remove contractures in his leg and improve his leg mobility. However, around the same time, some family relations told him about a man named Jadev who had opened a hospital of alternative medicine in Bangalore to treat polio patients. News articles and ads were appearing in magazines about Jadev, claiming that he was curing patients afflicted with polio, restoring mobility to the immobile. Feeling that this was a better alternative that surgery, Arasu convinced his initially unwilling parents to send him to this hospital. He was put on a waiting list for treatment at this hospital. After 3 years of waiting, he was finally admitted to this alternative medicine hospital.
At the hospital, his initial treatment consisted of putting 10kg weights on his legs to straighten out (extend) his legs which had flexion (bent) contractures. This caused extreme pain. However, Jadev's treatment did not allow pain killers. The only painkiller Arasu was allowed was alcohol including Brandy and Whisky. Sometimes he would be allowed only a few shots, and other times when pain was extreme, he was given so much alcohol, he became unconscious. He was also put on an unusual diet of no rice or sour foods. After the weight treatment, Jadev preformed a procedure on Arasu's left leg which consisted of a "karate-chop" like technique directed at his bones. Miraculously it relieved the contracture and restored some mobility to his leg. This leg was then tied up to bamboo poles to immobilize it. For his right leg, Jadev invited an audience to view the procedure to show the validity of his form of surgery. When his first karate chop did not work to fully relieve the contracture in his left leg, Jadev struck Arasu's leg with a much greater force that dislocated and shattered his knee and caused nerve damage such that he lost sensation and any movement of that leg. The audience saw the contracture being relieved, but did not realize the damage that Jadev had caused. The procedure on the right leg also eventually caused loss of sensation. Arasu was at that time, not informed about what had happened. His legs were tied to bamboo sticks and immobilized them in a straight position. The pain he felt was excruciating. For 45 days straight, Arasu did not sleep due to the pain. Then his parents arrived at the hospital for a visit and after seeing his condition, took him back home. His worried parents took him to an allopathic doctor, who broke the news about the dislocation and multiple fractures. He was referred for surgery, where surgeons put in a plate with 3 screws to fixate his knee. 3 months later, one screw came out and started poking out of his skin. For one year, he dressed the wound that was being caused by the screw poking out with penicillin cream and bandages. Finally, he went back to the doctors, and they removed the plate. Unfortunately, Arasu had a signed a waiver in court before getting his treatment from Jadev which absolved Jadev of any responsibility. Therefore, Arasu could not sue.
After these traumatic experiences, Arasu was no longer able to walk with the use of calipers and crutches. He hasn't walked since. His house wasn't even suited for a wheelchair, therefore he spent another 2 years literally sitting at his home; rarely ever venturing out of his house. His family was extremely supportive. Arasu had 2 brothers, and 1 sister. At home, his parents treated him as they treated their other children, making him feel that he was no different than his able bodied brothers and sister. To help relieve him of his boredom, Arasu's parents helped him start a small business right within their house, which involved buying clothes from the warehouse, and selling it at their house. He was able to earn some money and the fact that he was being productive made him happy.
One day Arasu was reading the newspaper and saw an ad from an organization called Jevanan Jodi stating that there was computer training available for the disabled. Arasu jumped at the opportunity. He went to Madras and stayed in a hostel for one year and got the basic computer training that would later propel him into a success.
However, first other obstacles had to be faced. As soon as he completed the course, he had gained a lot of confidence and applied for numerous jobs. He received calls from 2 different hospitals where they stated over the phone that they were very interested in having him work with their new computer systems. However, when he wheeled himself into the first interview, he was given an unusual look by the interviewers. They proceeded to conduct the full interview. At the end of the interview, they stated they he was very qualified for the job, but that they simply did not have the facilities to have a wheelchair bound person working in their hospital and because it would be too difficult for him, they could not offer him the job. The other hospital also bluntly denied him the job because of his disability.
Arasu became extremely disillusioned. He felt hopeless, and felt that he could never be independent and productive because of his disability. After 2 years of hopelessness, he was told from a family member about Amar Seva Sangam (ASSA), a place where disabled children and youth were housed, educated and rehabilitated. It was a very disabled friendly environment and he was encouraged to apply for a job based on his computer training. When he came to ASSA, he was offered the job of data- entry operator by Mr. Sankara Raman, the Secretary of Amar Seva Sangam, who himself was confined to a wheelchair due to muscular dystrophy. Arasu bluntly told Sankara Raman that he has been out of touch with computers for 2 years, and that he was not sure how well he could do the job. Sankara Raman, however, believed in him and gave him the job, and even slowly increased Arasu's responsibility. Seeing someone believe in him gave Arasu a huge boost of confidence. He slowly started self-educating himself about computers by reading different books and manuals (after all, he had self- educated himself through high school).
At one point, he was given the task of building a security feature on ASSA's computer network, so that no one could break into their system. He taught himself the programming language Fox-Pro and after 1 year of struggling with this task, he built a unique security system that no one had ever made before. This was a huge accomplishment for him his self-confidence grew. Through distance education he completed a Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) and went on to become a Electronic Data Processor and Software Developer at ASSA. He is now a Professor of Desk Top Publishing and System Administration at the Indira Gandhi National Open University located at ASSA and System Administrator, being in charge of all the IT at ASSA. In 2003, he won the Award for Best Teacher for the Handicapped in all of Tamil Nadu by the State Government, for which he was given a gold medal.
He is now 33 lives on the ASSA premises and goes to his parents home every 3 months. He never was able to develop friendships at his native village, and his only friends were his family. This was due to his extreme shyness about being seen out in public with his disability. He is still embarrassed a little about his disability, but his confidence has now allowed him to make many friends at ASSA and travel out into the public and interact with non-disabled people frequently for office related matters. Arasu also has a keen interest in art, drawing, piano and music. |
