With a plum job, he could have settled happily with his family in the Gulf. But he quit his job and flew to Mysore, leaving his nurse-wife and two other children in the Gulf. He did it for securing proper treatment and education for his six-year-old son who suffered from profound loss of hearing.
At the All-India Institute of Speech and Hearing (AIISH) here, his son made tremendous progress. At the school, his progress was no less impressive. But, then came the government’s move derecognising schools, dealing a crippling blow to what till then looked like good prospects for the boy, both academically and otherwise.
And now the helpless father, who has taken a great deal of risk for his son’s sake, is told by school after school here that they can’t take in the boy.
Nowhere to go
The few that have agreed to admit him couldn’t seem to care for his disability. Joseph Zacharia, a native of Kerala, is thus virtually at the crossroads, holding his poor child’s hand, quite at a loss about where he would be going from here.
It was in 2000 that Mr Zacharia shifted base to Mysore as he was convinced that AIISH would do something about his son’s condition. (His wife Ancy is now raising their two other children in the Gulf.)
‘Best mother’
With the tireless efforts of AIISH staff, Blesson Joseph, now 13, is now in a position to do his schooling, the government permitting.
Implant
After a Cochlear implant, which cost Rs 10 lakh, the boy can understand what others say and react through writing and even say a few words, though somewhat incoherent.
The 61 per cent he secured in the Std IV exam owed a lot to his father’s grit and caring.
So much so Mr Zacharia was once adjudged the “Best mother” by the AIISH!.
Institutions
Speaking to Deccan Herald, he said none of the prestigious institutions were willing to take Blesson. That he was trained at AIISH only in English, in fact, made it more difficult! Even when he managed to get his son enrolled somewhere, he’d soon find that the school didn’t take too kindly to the ‘English-only’, hearing-impaired boy.
Hope lived
Just when he was on the brink of giving up, a small school at Kuvempunagar offered his son what no other school cared to. The staff there took special care of the boy.
But then came the derecognition move, which turned Zachariah’s world upside down.
Now, the poor father is moving around the city, his unfortunate son in tow, to find yet another school that would care to admit him.