Fragrance of hope and success
Many people give up on life after any obstacle they may face. Some, like Shubham Singh from Mumbai rewrite the story of their lives and become inspirations.
He was born on November 3, 2001. Hewasn't born with a disability, and had no visual impairment. However, in 2011, his vision began to deteriorate, and by 2013, he discovered that he had a birth defect - retina detachment. By 2015, he had lost 50% of his vision. In 2018, he underwent eye surgeries, but unfortunately, due to incorrect treatment, he lost 100% of his vision.
In academics, his journey began in 2006 when he started 1st standard in an English medium school. By 2013, he was in 8th standard, and his vision was still 100%. However, from 2014 to 2020, there was a gap in his schooling because he lost his sight and became blind.
In 2020, when he learned that blind people can also pursue education, he restarted his academic journey. From 2020 to 2021, he attended NAB Mulund, a school for blind children, and passed his10th standard with 67% in Hindi medium.
Next, he attended SP College in Pune from 2021 to 2023, where he completed his junior college in commerce with 52%. He accomplished this alongside normal students in English medium.
However, due to personal problems, he took a year-long break from 2023 to 2024. After that, he began his first-year BA at Kalyan Sonvane College in English medium.
Simultaneously, from 2023 to 2025, he completed a perfumery diploma course through Kelkar College, Mulund, affiliated with Mumbai University.
His inspiration is his perfumery diploma teacher, Dhruvi Gosrani mam. She's not only a great teacher but also a successful businessperson. She has achieved a lot in business at a young age, and he learns a lot from her. His younger sister, Neha Dhruvanarayan Singh, has been a big support in various aspects of his life. He faces challenges in every aspect of his life, from personal to education, sports, and business. Everywhere, however, he finds solutions. While traveling, he faces problems due to lack of awareness about blindness among people. However, he gets assistance from phone software during travel. in business, he faces trust issues with customers. To overcome this, he provides information about his products to convince them.
In sports, he faces financial challenges due to lack of support from organizations. Here, the players reach out to contacts and individuals to secure funding support.in education, the challenge is finding writers for exams, and audio books are not readily available for studying. To overcome this, he uses YouTube for studying, although he still faces challenges.
He has still achieved a lot by hosting business exhibitions and qualifying for international-level skating sports. He hopes to become a successful entrepreneur and generate employment opportunities for people in the visually impaired community. In the area of sports, he aims to make India proud in the sport of skating at the international level and become India's first visually impaired skater.
His message to all is if you want to achieve something in life, keep working towards it until you succeed. Don't try to avoid problems, instead, use them as your strength. Only then will you be able to achieve something in life.
While wishing him all the best, I am sure we will hear much more about him in future and learn a lot from him in never giving up.
By Jamuna Rangachari
