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Hi, my name is George Abraham and welcome to Eyeway conversations. My guest today is Mujtaba Merchant, who also calls himself Mister Kayne. He is a Project Management Professional, and accessibility advocate, and does a lot of work in diversity and inclusion within his company. Hi Mujtaba, welcome.
Hi, George, glad to meet you.
So Mujtaba, you started your career in an IT company. What were you doing? Were you in HR or marketing or IT?
George, I started my career as an HR consultant and mainly dealt with recruitment. But I used to recruit both for the IT as well as the non IT industry. That's how I started my career.
And what have you studied meaning was it a regular degree or you did something in management?
Yes, I did my Bachelor's in business management where I specialized in human resources and marketing.
How long were you into your professional life when you actually had your sight loss?
My sight loss is I would still say is quite recent. It was in the year 2011 but I believe I started working in 2002 if I'm not mistaken. 1994 I've finished my schooling and then finished my pre university two years to that year, somewhere around 2002 is when I started working and 2011 is when I lost my sight due to a medical complication called glaucoma.
So when this eye condition happened was there time lost and brooding over it and feeling sorry for yourself or you got on with life?
Oh no, that was a very traumatic experience that I had because I was at the age of 35. And I had just joined a new company and I was about to be promoted, there was a very big client meeting that was centered around me. I had a family and I also had a child at that time. And this sudden sight loss put a break on all my, you know, ambitions and plans. And I was left, you know, wondering what happened, you know, that kind of thoughts in terms of where life is going to be next. So, yeah, I did have approximately a week and a half or more of trying to accept the fact of the sight loss, and that there is no return in terms of gaining my vision back. So we did consult a lot of doctors in the process and we got the same feedback that once you lose sight due to glaucoma, there's no way of you regaining your vision back. We did try alternative medicines like ayurveda and homeopathy and all that. But the general understanding was there is no possibility of gaining sight. So yeah, it was a week and a half.
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You have recovered, and you're back in full flight as far as life is concerned. So what were the steps or organizations of people who actually helped you kind of get back onto your feet?
I would like to start with my immediate family that would be my parents who were the pillars of my support. Unfortunately, I had to end the marriage that I had at that time because they were very insecure about what I would be doing in life and I had no answers at that time. Parents took a lot of effort in trying to get in touch with a lot of hospitals and other institutions that could probably help with my condition. They also went through that trauma of you know, their son losing the sight. So they also had to accept things quite early. One of my cousin brothers, and my aunt, my mother's sister was with me as another supporting pillar. And my cousin brother is the one who found out about the National Association for the Blind. And I was advised to take up my mobility and orientation training from them. That was the first experience I had with the white cane which is a mobility aid that I use today to, you know, get from point A to point B. That training was for around six months if I'm not mistaken. And the trainers, they were very very accommodating. And I remember my first question to my instructor that, you know, if I can't see how will I be able to walk. He said, my dear friend, you need legs to walk, not eyes. And that changed my perspective altogether, you know and I accepted the cane very early because I know that is something that is going to add value to the current given situation. And it's going to empower me to be independent. Post that once I was confident of my mobility and orientation, I also got to know from the audience, same institution that they have training for computers, using an assistive technology called a screen reader. And this was something really new to me. I was an avid video gamer when I had sight, I know about artificial intelligence and things like that. But I was surprised that -not exactly surprised - but I was like, you know, fortunate to have that exposure to the technology that would enable me to use computers again. And another fortunate incident is that the institute that I trained on the screen reading technology was a block away from where I stay. So I had good access to their facility. This is an institution by the name EnAble India, that's where I trained. And for me, the training was cut short because I already knew the basics of computers. I knew what things were on, you know, and so I had to just train on the screen reading technology. And that, I think, was around for another six months. So overall, a year of rehabilitation is what happened as far as things went in kind of rehabilitating me back to understanding my disability and empower myself in terms of being able to use technology and being able to independently do things.
I've noticed that you often refer to yourself on various platforms as Mr. Kayne.
Yeah, yes, very true. So it was a name that I christened myself for my disability or my sight loss. It's Mister, spelled MISTER. It's not abbreviated to Mr. And Kayne is spelled KAYNE. So yeah, it's quite a unique name that I go by. And I use this name a lot within the community. A lot of them know me as Mr. Kayne, within the offline community as well as online. That's where I use this name. I write a lot of blogs, and I publish a lot of blogs under that name. So that's how that name came about because I accepted the cane and the cane has become, you know, part of me. So I just happen to spell cane differently. something inspired by a WWF wrestler.
So you eluded to writing a blog. What do you write on the blog? What's your blog called, and what you write about?
The blog has a very big title. I don't know if I'm gonna be able to get it right. But I'll give you the blog address. It's www.mister-kayne.blogspot.com. And the blog is titled "The somebody, everybody and nobody's blog". And I have a section on how I acquired my disability and how I dealt with it. I write about technology. I write about a lot of humorous and obnoxious experiences that I've had with my blindness, like entering to the ladies toilet, into the gents toilet, and what happened after that. So there's a lot of blind bloopers, and then I maintain a notebook. So that's my maybe everyday experience, or maybe something that I wanted to share, that's come to my mind. I write a lot of that on the website. And with this particular journey, I've got a lot of experience in not only imagining my world without sight, but imagining the world how it will be if I still had sight. So it's quite a few topics that are really good to be indulging in.
After your break from your profession, you've gone back to the same company and work. So tell me a little bit about how was your journey back into your professional life?
Yeah, that was something I would say I'm privileged to be back working back with the same organization because the organization believes in inclusion. And it is an organization that's been there for more than 100 years, I believe. So the reemployment was not much of a challenge because I already worked with the same people, I worked with the same company, albeit only for a year. But I was able to convince them about my skills, and they knew my performance from the past. So they really hired me. It took a little time for me to adjust to the new work environment because I was not doing what I was doing earlier. And I had to take up a new role and understand new processes that needed to be done in terms of job roles. Even though that first few days, or first few weeks of employment were trying to get things set up was the induction in terms of arranging the software, the screen reading software, and orienting me to the office and you know, areas of interest in the organization in leveling. So, yeah, I had a lot of support from my colleagues as well as leadership. That's something that I really appreciated.
So your level of work? Was it compromised because of your blindness when you rejoined?
I would say yes because the kind of work I was doing was more to do with market research. And it had to do with a lot of presentations which had graphs and numbers and statistics in it. It was more like market reports that I used to create using PowerPoint and PowerPoint being a very visual tool and you have to place a lot of graphs and data in a presentable manner. So that kind of becomes difficult for somebody who is totally visually impaired. However, it's not that you cannot use PowerPoint altogether. But these aspects of the presentation, you'd have to take help from people who could see or sighted to be able to get through. So I didn't want to take up that challenge. And I felt that I would rather take up kind of a role where I'd be more into what my passion is as such people management. And so I joined as a project management executive where I take care of the compliance for my whole business unit. And I also take care of allocation which means to say how many people are seated under which project and also take care of their training needs, allocate training to them, that's the kind of role as of now that I am doing currently.
And what do you see yourself going forward? Any kind of aspirations?
Yeah, I've already set my aspirational career goal to get into client engagements where I have acquired a competency in transition management. Now I'm training on a technology although I do not come from a technology background. I am training on cloud technology and I've taken up a certification on Microsoft Azure. This is is the first step. So the aspirational role would be as a client engagement manager. And I'm hoping to be in sales because I think I can do a good job there.
You know, you talked about being doing a lot of work in the area of diversity and inclusion within your organization. Can you tell us a little bit about what exactly have you been doing?
Oh, that's been a really exciting thing about being engaged with this organization because diversity and inclusion talks more about racial as well as gender gaps in the organization. Very rarely spoken about is disability. And it's a topic that they'd rather not touch for its challenges that it poses. So I do a lot of connects in terms of sensitizing workgroups or projects on disability inclusion, probably break a lot of myths by telling them like, "look, I work just like you, the only difference is that I use a separate tool called a screen reader to help me use the computer". So that being said, I've also been a part of an organizational wide initiative which is to do with hiring of persons with disability where we look at approaching hiring, not based on disability. So we're not mapping jobs to disability, but we are mapping skills to jobs. So that's the approach we are doing and it's kicked off very well and the whole organization has bought into the initiative. And we've already started, you know, channeling resources to various projects and business units within the organization. We had good success with that. So I was a part of that thought leadership team.
You've also been quite active when it comes to accessibility advocacy. I've also seen you very aggressively tweeting about it. What are the kinds of sectors you've got in this direction?
I have been a strong supporter of the Global Accessibility Awareness Day, which is GAAD. And I do a lot of talks within the community and circles and mind network on accessibility. Once upon a time, I was a privileged customer of this ride application called Ola. Ever since they had broken the accessibility, with that it really kind of hindered my ability to get to places because I can't drive anymore, nor ride anymore. So I was completely reliant on that service on getting home. I kind of didn't experience much of public transport. And I was very apprehensive about, you know, using such transport to get to point A to point B, but, but there's a few experiences that I've had with public transport, I've been always been assisted, you know, by either the passengers or the conductor on these rides. But with these private players, it was difficult with Ola. But now, I'm not saying that my experience with the drivers is bad, but it's the app that is totally inaccessible. A lot of other services that we heavily rely on to get our day to day lives done are inaccessible. Also, I feel there's a lot of ignorance in terms of creating awareness. So I do write to a lot of companies on accessibility, I do provide a lot of resources. And I do a lot of advocacy work on various platforms like LinkedIn and Twitter, and Facebook. So in terms of success, I can't take complete ownership of success because there are other people that I associate with who also strongly support this cause. And somewhere down the line, things work out in terms of accessibility. So I don't have anything in terms of credit towards the success as of now.
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Working is one thing, you know, keep yourself busy. And I'm sure there's struggles in terms of traveling, commuting and all that. How do you release the tension meaning are there sources of entertainment that you kind of invested in? Or do you do any kind of reading just to let the tension off?
What I try to do as far as unwinding is concerned, I listen to a lot of audiobooks. I listen to a lot of podcasts. I watch a lot of movies on Amazon Prime and Netflix. Some of them are audio described, some of them are not. I also spend a lot of time with my wife and kids. I have a five year old daughter so I engage a lot with them. I do a lot of dining out. I do a lot of socializing with my friends. So yeah, that helps me unwind. Unfortunately, I haven't taken a vacation yet. So the only place I've been to post blindness was to Bombay. And that was to basically get hitched, that is to get married to my wife. So that was the only travel I had post blindness.
Yeah, I just was also wondering, you know, you mentioned that when you lost your sight, you had to kind of break your marriage because of the uncertainties of the future. So how did you actually get married again? And is there a story behind this or was it some kind of an arranged affair?
You'll not believe it, George, I did fall in love post blindness too. At this time, it was nothing to do with the physical appearance of a person but how I was able to connect emotionally as well as intellectually. And unfortunately, things were going south in terms of that relationship because we had a lot of differences in terms of being able to connect, but this marriage happened after five years of my employment. And that's when I felt confident and ready to take up a new responsibility. And this happened through a common friend of the family. So it was more of an arranged marriage than you know, a love marriage. And to be honest, at that point of time, I was in a very huge dilemma whether I should marry somebody with a visual impairment or should I marry somebody with sight. So I wasn't able to decide as in whatever comes my way, I should first see that it is something that we can commit to. So that was the state at that time. So it was arranged.
And what's it like to be a father, you said, you have a five year old daughter?
Parenthood is a full time job. Trust me, when they say it takes a village to raise a child, they were not kidding. So yeah, she's a handful. And I have held her from the time she was born. Now she is engaged with her schooling, her friends. She's five years old. We just had a birthday party last year, in the month of May. It was a grand celebration, and she thoroughly enjoyed it. And yes, playing with her, interacting with her and she understanding about her father not being able to see. And it's a journey and she still feels that, you know, her father's a Superman in some way or the other because whenever her mother tells her something, she always comes running to me with her confession, you know, like this is what happened today. And we have these nice conversations and she wants to sleep alone on our cot. She wants to sleep next to me. So she's very attached in that way.
And as she grows up, do you see yourself playing a role in her studies and extracurricular activities and so on?
Yes, in fact, I am an integral part of her education. So the school that she's enrolled in gives me updates on the mobile app which wasn't accessible. Oh good, I got one success story in terms of accessibility and advocacy. So I spoke to them and I told them, please ask your team to just check on how they can make these applications accessible. And so most of everything comes to me on the app. And then my wife does help with the writing whereas I helped with the revision in terms of oral and spellings and I play quizzes with her in terms of can you tell me a two letter words you know, starting with T, things like that. So that's the role I play as far as extracurricular activities. We play things like passing the ball with the normal ball, not with the ball which has a bell on it. This is a normal ball. So it's always me who loses that passing the ball again. I don't catch it and she gets the ball. But now she's learned a new clever technique, she rolls a ball towards me or hands it to my hand. And then we play rock, paper, scissors, and we also do a lot of exercises together. In fact, she's my yoga guru. So she teaches me whatever she watches on YouTube, she tells me where to put my hand and how to put my leg, how to position parts of my body to get into the posture.
That sounds interesting. And on that note of the family, I think we will move on. Thank you very much for giving us the time to speak with you and wish you the very best as you move on both professionally and with your family. Take care.
Thank you, George. It's a pleasure speaking to you.
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