Challenges conquered

When his friends used to buy books from the Ekushey book fair and talk excitedly about reading those, he wished he could have done the same.

Abul Kalam Azad had lost his vision from a severe attack of typhoid in childhood. But he did not know what he still had -- big dreams and unswerving determination -- would one day make his wish come true.

He started looking for alternative ways of quenching his thirst for reading, not through Braille, that strenuous method of reading using one's hands, but through means closer to the real taste.

First, he tried to find out if recitation of any Bangla books was available but he found none.

"Visually impaired people's inaccessibility to books struck me hard. It was then I decided to develop a website," said Azad, an English teacher at Laxmipur Government Girls' High School.

In November 2014, he started working on the site and by the end of January 2015, he almost single-handedly finished designing www.gyanbikash.com what is to be regarded a remarkable feat in introducing Bangla audio books to those who cannot see.

In his mid-thirties now, he has so far uploaded 50 such books so that blind people could enjoy them through recitation. The books include novels by Rabindranath Tagore, Manik Bandopadhyay, Narayan Bangopadhyay, Shibram Chakraborty, Sunil Gangopadhyay, Shirshendu Mukhopadhyay, Syed Shamsul Haque, Humayun Ahmed, Muhammad Zafar Iqbal and Anisul Haque.

Work to upload more books is on.

"Our motto is to gather knowledge regarding various books, mobile and computer applications and disseminate it among visually impaired people. We are here to make all the books and software accessible and available for those people who are really deprived of this opportunity" -- reads a paragraph under the link "About us".

At some point, though, he had to take assistance from his family members and others, especially in matters of selecting colours and designing.

To get the books recited, he outsourced people through upwork, a freelancer marketplace. He himself did the editing part.

To think his website offers nothing more than audio books, however, is to miss the whole point. He was prescient enough to know only audio books would leave vast swathes of readers out. So he created quite a rich online library of Bangla books under categories as diverse as history, novels, children's literature, Liberation War, biographies, poetry, science fiction, horror, tin goyenda and travel so that the site can be of use to all.

All of these books are available in PDF format and can be read online or downloaded for free.

Looking at the design and browsing through the contents, anyone would be left wondering how a visually impaired person has done it almost on his own.

What makes it all the more special is that he himself bore all the expenses of building the site.

Asked about what motivated him to take this initiative, he said, "Like my sighted friends, I cannot start reading a book after buying it. I have to convert it into braille text, which is not only time consuming but costly as well.

"Therefore, I thought of making audio versions of the texts and uploading those on a website. If any visually impaired person visits this website and listens to the audio, it would be my success," he said.

These correspondents engaged him in a talk when he came to Dhaka to receive training on digital content development at the capital's Teachers' Training College (TTC) on January 4 this year. There he proved himself to be the quickest learner as he finished a task much ahead of others. A total of 25 visually impaired teachers received the two-week training there.

Born in Comilla, he lost his vision in both eyes when he was a student of Class V. After completing his HSC, Azad, third among five children, enrolled at the premier institution of the country -- Dhaka University-- in English in 2002.

He completed his honours and master's in English Literature.

Referring to one of his teachers, Prof Fakrul Alam, he said the teacher helped him immensely to realise his goals.

During a tutorial class, Prof Fakrul noticed that Azad was not responding as quickly as others.

"After the class, Sir asked me if I needed anything. I told him a computer might be of great help. Sir bought me a new computer in a week," he said.

Contacted, Prof Fakrul said Azad was always “intellectually brilliant” and a man of “advance thinking”.

“He was capable of taking independent initiatives. That's why I always provided him with direct support. He influenced other visually impaired students of the department who also started doing well,” said the DU professor, who is also a writer, editor, translator and researcher.

One of his seniors from Masterda Surya Sen Hall taught him basic computing. The rest he learned with his own effort and hard work.

Whenever he faced any problem, he sought help from Google with the help of screen reader software, and kept on practising.

After finishing his studies in 2010, Azad joined the school in Laxmipur in September 2011. His parents live with him in Laxmipur and he is the lone earner in his family.

Soon he became a popular teacher thanks to his unique style of teaching.

It was then he decided to develop another website -- www.englishgrammer24.com -- for imparting English grammar lessons. The site, launched in June last year, offers many easy techniques to learn English and many exercises to develop skills in the language.

"I love to do this. I don't know how long I will live, but I want to leave something behind for people, especially for those who cannot see," Azad told The Daily Star.

He had other accomplishments as a teacher.

He always gave classes in an interactive way, incorporating contemporary issues in class lessons. He regularly uses laptop for incorporating multimedia materials in his class.

Md Abdul Wahab, head teacher of the school, said he was often impressed with the way Azad taught students.

"I've observed his classes for a few days out of curiosity. I found students engrossed in his lecture," Wahab, who joined the school a year ago, told The Daily Star.

Azad, despite loss of his eyesight, is a book lover. He encourages his students to borrow books from him. In his Laxmipur house, he has a small library with around 2,000 books.

"My students borrow books from me and return those in a week. I maintain a registry book and cards to lend the books," he said.

As the talk turned to his future plans, Azad said he wanted to build gyanbikash.com into a big institution where books would be printed in braille with audio formats so that visually impaired people could get those whenever they wanted.

To develop his work further, he wants to do an overseas training.

"If I get training, I would be able to do something more for visually impaired people. I believe I will be able to do it," he hoped.