Sitting beside Kanchan Pamnani (42) and watching her fiddle with her phone, sift through the cluttered inbox on the laptop screen and continue the buoyancy of her conversation while doing all that, kindles a secret desire in us: to steal away a little bit of her energy.

In all this, we are likely to forget one fact: that Kanchan is blind, which is largely eclipsed by her ceaseless energy and ability to engage companions in an absorbing conversation.

What may perhaps matter to us more is Kanchan has 17 years of experience as a lawyer and she backs up the tricks of the trade with qualifications that has been the envy of her tribe. "I believe in making the most of the opportunity given to me and I think I have done my best," she says, having performed her day's work as a solicitor and partner in Pamnani&Pamnani law firm (with the aid of the screen reader-enabled laptop and mobile phone).

Of course, respect for the legal profession doesn't come without the stomach for a fight. Kanchan's father, Mr Shyam Pamnani, would vouch for her credentials having faced a tirade of questions to his mild suggestion that her fading eye sight may stand against her aspirations of a career in law. "I wanted to prove him wrong," Kanchan says; the smile slowly giving way to pensive recollection. "I grew up seeing him (Mr Pamnani) wading through large volumes of books and discussing about cases with his clients. This affinity for law and my own hunger for learning meant law almost became my natural career choice." 

Though at the cutting-edge of her chosen career today, Kanchan can't forget the hard days when she had several unanswered questions about life. Yes, she had smiles and the steel underneath to sustain her desire, but tackling low vision in childhood asked for more courage. 

"Handling low vision wasn't difficult, but certainly it wasn't easy either," recalls Kanchan.  Thanks to the self-confidence she gathered from "standing up", be it answering questions posed to her or delivering a cohesive talk on a topic, she assumed leadership roles such as president of the Rotaract Club and later the district governor (Rotaract Representative 3140), where she ensured "the buck stopped at my doorsteps."  

Corporate law
Her passion to marshal continued during her days in government law college (Mumbai), where, besides other activities, she was the founder editor of the college magazine. At this time, she started putting her tender steps into her career, doing articleship for law firms like Dhru & Co and Thakker & Thakker.

Solicitor's exam from Bombay Incorporated Law Society and Qualified Lawyers Transfer Test (Solicitor, Supreme Court of England) from The England Law Society, followed her graduation. In the 1990s, she also specialised in corporate law and intellectual property rights.

The dream title, "solicitor," was the price of her perseverance, as she practiced independently for a few years, but it needed more courage to take the setbacks of her personal life: four operations to restore the detached retina in her eyes failed and the little vision she had, dwindled. "All those surgeries only proved to me that I could still recover and had another day to resume my work."

References came initially from her friends, who, having felt more-than-satisfied with the way she handled their legal issues, started spreading the word. But the glamour of dealing with corporate community and the elite among entrepreneurs didn't make Kanchan forget her "obligation and responsibility", of taking time off and winning landmark cases for persons with disability. Until recently, students with visual impairment in Maharashtra struggled to find a scribe (who writes the exams for the blind as they dictate the answer) and a PIL was filed in the state High Court requesting adaptation of a proper procedure in assigning scribes and a gradual extension in time to write exams (which is necessary as finishing exams depended solely on the writing speed of the scribes).
Being in the unique position of an advocate and also a visually challenged person frequently sitting for exams, Kanchan intervened and presented a different perspective to the court and the policy she drafted with the assistance of NGOs in disability sector was finally accepted by the court and implemented by the government of Maharashtra. Her intervention was also crucial in implementing a change in rule that allowed persons with blindness to open DEMAT account independently, something that wasn't permissible until recently.

"You got to work extra hours to accommodate this workload," she says. "Of course, that can be done, with a pleasant chat and a bunch of chocolates…. Oh that's the secret of my energy, if you like," she says bursting into laughter.