The blinkers installed at Mylai Balaji Nagar junction, between Kaiveli junction and Balaji Dental College bridge, on Velachery-Tambaram Main Road, is the result of a sustained campaign by Doshi Symphony, a gated community.
K. Rajesh, who is president of the residents welfare association at this community, was in the forefront of this campaign, which involved making representations to authorities who could ensure this was carried out.
“We also want a pedestrian signal at the junction as crossing the road is a nightmare,” says Rajesh. He keeps visiting the Metrowater office to speed up pipe-laying work on the stretch.
“We got a bus stop set up outside our apartment complex,” says Rajesh.
Rajesh has a good grasp of civic issues around him and relentlessly pursues them with the respective government department.
Besides civic broblems, 47-year-old Rajesh has been staring defiantly at other issues, from behind those rimmed spectacles.
He was afflicted with astigmatism as a child. Rajesh is purblind — there is no vision in his right eye; and due to a raft of surgeries and a high-power contact lens, he is able to see with his left eye.
“I sometimes cannot see a person from a distance. For fear that people think I am arrogant and am looking right through them, I open up about my vision,” he says.
Rajesh points out that he does not feel limited by his vision problem. He is supporting a visually-impaired brother and a 78-year-old mother.
Rajesh was studying at P.S. High School in Mylapore when he realised his vision was blurred. In those days, awareness of astigmatism was poor.
“I could not see the board even from the first bench, so I used to sit on the teacher’s dais and take down notes,” says Rajesh, who went on to complete his schooling at a regular school, despite being a “slow learner”.
His brother Srikanth, five years older than Rajesh, lost vision in both eyes after being hit by a cricket ball.
Fighting individually
At the age of 10, Rajesh had a laser operation on his eye but it helped only to some extent. It took Rajesh great effort to complete his schooling. With sheer determination, Rajesh went on to get a degree in economics from DB Jain College and later a post-graduate diploma in marketing and sales.
In 2001, while working with a Japanese company Rajesh developed cataract and retinal complication that made it difficult for him to see. “Doctors refused to treat me as it was a complicated case. They feared I would lose vision in the eye,” says Rajesh, who later went on to start his own venture, R.K. Safety Solutions in 2006.
There was little respite even with the glasses and his struggle to read continued. “I was given a special (RGB) Rigid Gas Permeable contact lens. It is a thick, hard lens that reshapes the cornea to a spherical shape. At times, it feels like someone is pulling my eyes out. I also have to be extremely careful that no dust enters my eye,” he explains.
Having a permanent health issue does not deter Rajesh from doing things he likes. A die-hard fan of Sachin Tendulkar, he likes to play cricket. A voracious reader, he devours books.
“I have an aspiration to do good for people and I wish to enter politics,” he says.
