I’m Preethu Jayaprakash, a newly qualified Chartered Accountant from Kerala.
I’ll briefly recount my journey till here.
Looking back, I can say that my journey had begun even before my birth. I had an elder brother. When he was 6-months old, my parents noticed that he had been unable to achieve certain growth milestones and that he was a little weak. When they consulted some doctors, they said there was nothing to worry about and that he would be ok in some time with some physiotherapy sessions.
However, my brother didn’t start walking even after 2 years of age. Seeing him alone, my parents thought of having a second child, so that his little brother or sister would take care of him, and he wouldn’t be alone. But unfortunately, I came into their life like a tsunami.
When I was born, I was a normal baby. But just like my brother’s case my parents noticed same symptoms in me too. Then it was a non-stop movement from hospital to hospital. At last, they found out the reason behind our weakness. It was a disease called Spinal Muscular Atrophy, because of which our muscles become weak. At that time there was no treatment for this illness. In fact, no medicine was available till 2016. But now medicine is available even in India, but the cost of the treatment would come around 60 lakhs per annum which a person from a middle-class family like me can’t afford.
I was born and grew up in a small village in Kerala. My father was a government employee. It was difficult for my mother to send her children to school every day. In my village, the transportation facility was very poor. For going to town, we had to depend on country boats – all of you would be aware of boat races in Kerala. So, I had to do all my schooling and college studies including the CA course from my home itself. I had home tuitions. They were not trained teachers, but College-going students near my home who, after their studies would come and help us in studies. I had no friends in my childhood; the only friend I had was my brother. But he passed away at the age of 16. It was very difficult for me to come to terms with that reality. It was like I became all alone in this world.
About my study strategy, my basic computer education was through purely trial and error method, like if we press the backspace, we can see that the last letter is removed. For CA studies, I had taken some YouTube videos and crash courses for a few subjects. For improving language skills, I used to watch movies and series. Now, I know English, Hindi and Tamil, apart from my mother tongue. Now, every student in our world is studying from home. Maybe I would be the first person who used this strategy and got 88% in 10th, 96% in 12th, 90% in B Com and finally qualified CA final this February.
When I was doing my BCom first year some of my friends said that they are going to do CPT but later they said they couldn’t clear even after 3-4 attempts. Then I also decided to try that. By god’s grace, I could clear that in my first attempt without any coaching and that gave me a lot of confidence. When I decided to do CA I had not seen any CA in my life apart from some photos on the ICAI website. The first CA I met in my life was my principal CA Bijumon Antony.
When I said I wanted to become Chartered Accountant, everyone said ‘CA course is one of the toughest courses in India and that it’s difficult to even for normal students to clear this exam. So, if you want to study further do something like M Com or MBA. And, even if you qualify this, no one is going to hire a wheelchair-bound girl”. But my parents told me, “This is your life and you’re more educated than us. U can understand the right choice. We will support you”. And then everyone said, “this girl is stubborn, and her parents madly love her and that is why she doesn’t know what she can dream and what she cannot”.
I’m a dreamy girl. I won’t allow my weakness to stop me from dreaming. I am very curious in understanding alternative ways to overcome it.
I believe no one can understand your strength and weaknesses better than yourself. There is no point in thinking and worrying about our weaknesses. Instead of that, think about alternate sources to overcome the weakness. Then one day your dreams will come true!
My writing speed is less. So I had to use the service of a scribe during the examination. They were under graduate students ( B.coM first year). They don’t know anything about our syllabus and I had to explain everything within the time limit. This was the most difficult part.
Finally, I qualified in February 2021. It was the first day I saw my parent’s eyes were filled with tears after my brother’s death. I got a lot of calls from morning to midnight, lots of messages on FB, Instagram. Then I thought after all the struggles Finally I reached the top of the world. But it didn’t take more than a week to understand the reality. When I approached some CA firm in Kerala they said some silly excuses for not hiring me. Can anyone imagine in 2021 one of the interviewers of a private banking company asked me a question “You’re a wheelchair-bound girl and our office is on the 4th floor. What we will do if the elevator stops working after you enter the office. How we will manage the situation. I don’t know when people will understand the fact that disability can happen at any point in time. No one can predict their future. Now I am working at Deloitte USI, Hyderabad office. During my free time, I’m providing free online education to differently-abled students. Because I was alone when I needed such support.
In end, I would like to say
I am a wheelchair-bound girl I may not be able to change that but in which direction the wheelchair should move that I will decide.