The front page account on Sunday Herald “Where there is a Will there’s a Way” highlighting the brilliant success of the Canacona young man Ankur Kankonkar, most definitely epitomizes what an ardent desire, ambition coupled with determination and hardwork can do for the youth. Certainly Ankur had to put up a very stiff fight to overcome his personal handicap of blindness and some severe ups and downs in his earlier student career to move onwards without any fear or inhibition to achieve the academic goals and targets he had set for himself. Securing 94.5% in BSc with Computer Science in a public examination is a colossal performance and his wish to continue with academic pursuits to obtain a PhD in Computer Science certainly deserves admiration and appreciation and is at the same time a great source of inspiration to all our youth who also have ambitions to succeed in their lives.
Having all the five senses completely normal is a great asset and a massive advantage. Every student wishing to accomplish success in academic field can make it possible without any doubt and this has been made amply clear by Ankur inspite of absence of full vision.
I would like to mention here about another student who was born blind, I had the opportunity to teach him many years ago in Indian School Muscat. Pranav Lal who always took his studies very seriously inspite of his severe handicap, when once asked what he wished to become, had the audacity to say without any hesitation very boldly that he would like to pursue a career in IT. At that time no one took him seriously except his parents, maybe his close friends and a few teachers who were fully dedicated for his academic performance and success. Several years later I came to know that he indeed qualified himself as an IT Security professional and is gainfully employed in Delhi in a Telecom company. Blindness did not deter him to reach his goal. What is most amazing is that Photography is passion and hobby. He has special cameras fitted with sensors that work on the principle of SONAR and Pranav is able to decipher all the information such type, distance, size, dept etc. about objects he clicks.
Certainly where there is a will there is a Superhighway.
