City anchor: Akashwani denied him job,visually challenged man now voice of 91.2 FM

Last month,30-year-old Navale took over as the ‘radio in-charge’ at Yaralavani community radio station in Jaliyal,150 km from Sangli,and is a known name among the listeners of 91.2 FM. He is probably the only visually challenged person in the country who not only coordinates and plans radio programmes but also hosts them.

“Someone had advised me to study further and try making a career in educational broadcasting,” says Navale. So,after doing graduation from Abasaheb Garware College (Pune),he pursued MA and MEd from the University of Pune.

N V Deshpande,who founded Yaralavani around two years ago,says until Navale came for the interview,he was not aware that the job seeker was visually challenged. However,his knowledge about various radio channels and the way they work was far superior than anybody Deshpande knew. “I had the confidence that his disability could be overcome with technology. Within a month,he proved that my decision of hiring him was right,” says Deshpande,adding that Navale works without any assistance.

Navale owes this knowledge to his “obsession for radio”. Since the age of four,he says,he would listen to radio for around 16 hours a day. “I used to keep changing frequency after every 15-20 minutes or so. The timing and duration of each and every programme was on my fingertips,” he says.

Prior to joining Yaralavani,Navale worked as an educational researcher at University of Pune from 2008 to 2010. He then dabbled in making e-learning modules for the visually challenged,which he provided to various schools.

Talking about the initial challenges,Navale says being visually impaired he had to work with softwares like Jaws and Tox. “When you use Jaws,the voice gets mixed with radio broadcasting. I tackled this by using two headphones,” he says. Navale also had to work on the voice-level filter. On the radio mixer,he has made Braille-like markings that can be felt with his fingers. “With this,I can recognise where the voice filter is located on the radio mixer and accordingly I operate,” he says,adding that with this kind of technological adjustments any visually challenged person can work at any radio station.

Along with playing Hindi and Marathi songs,the Yaralavani radio station broadcasts live interactive programmes on social issues and current events,moral stories,interviews of achievers,programmes on English speaking and vocabulary,among others. “He is on par with any normal person and we don’t make him feel special or different,” says Deshpande.