Sascha Wil­son

Vi­su­al­ly-im­paired mu­si­cian Adri­an Ra­goo­nanan is re­fus­ing to let his dis­abil­i­ty dis­tract him from his goal of achiev­ing his de­gree in mu­sic.

Un­able to get a job to pur­sue stud­ies abroad, Ra­goo­nanan has chucked aside his self-con­scious­ness to be­come a street per­former.

Over the past week, he has tak­en up res­i­dence out­side Sco­tia Bank, High Street, San Fer­nan­do, to demon­strate his self-taught mu­si­cal prowess on the gui­tar.

A shoe box, placed be­fore him, is an open in­vi­ta­tion for passers-by to show their ap­pre­ci­a­tion with fist­ful of dol­lars. He al­so plays the vi­o­lin, vi­o­la and pi­ano.

In an in­ter­view, Ra­goo­nanan said the mon­ey is to help main­tain his two-year-old daugh­ter as well as to fund his stud­ies, if he is not grant­ed a schol­ar­ship to do so.

His life has been one of strug­gle, but Ra­goo­nanan is not fazed. At the age of three-months-old his bi­o­log­i­cal par­ents sep­a­rat­ed and his fa­ther mi­grat­ed to Cana­da. Ra­goo­nanan was placed in the care of his aunt Car­men and un­cle Ted­dy Seemu­n­gal who raised him as their own child. They have no chil­dren of their own.

Al­though he dis­played vast in­tel­li­gence, at age nine, his pri­ma­ry school teacher at Palmyra Hin­du School re­alised he was not ad­vanc­ing aca­d­e­m­i­cal­ly and asked his care­givers to take him to have his eyes test­ed.

It was at this point his rel­a­tives re­alised he was born with an in­cur­able con­di­tion known as mac­u­lar de­gen­er­a­tion.

In spite of this im­ped­i­ment, with the help of a friend who as­sist­ed him in read­ing, Ra­goo­nanan wrote the Sec­ondary En­trance As­sess­ment (SEA) pass­ing for the Pleas­antville Sec­ondary School. How­ev­er, as his sight de­te­ri­o­rat­ed it be­came in­creas­ing­ly dif­fi­cult and frus­trat­ing for him to keep up with the work.

His aunt sought and got a trans­fer for him to the Ste Madeleine Sec­ondary School, where his pri­ma­ry school friend was at­tend­ing.

How­ev­er, the friend was in a high­er form and was un­able to as­sist Ra­goo­nanan as he had done in pri­ma­ry school.

Frus­trat­ed by his in­abil­i­ty to cope, Ra­goo­nanan dropped out of sec­ondary school.

"Life was re­al­ly dif­fi­cult for me and I could not ac­cept my im­pair­ment."

As a high school drop-out, Ra­goo­nanan spent his days at home, as he sought em­ploy­ment and got re­ject­ed be­cause of his dis­abil­i­ty.

At age 18 he found love, got mar­ried and fa­thered two chil­dren, a boy, now three and a girl, age two.

Sight and fi­nan­cial chal­lenges soon put a wedge in the ro­mance, re­sult­ing in sep­a­ra­tion of the cou­ple. His wife left with their son and he was left with his daugh­ter who was born pre­ma­ture.

A job at the Blind Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion to earn milk mon­ey for his daugh­ter was short-lived. He said he was fired from that job.

At­tempts to find em­ploy­ment else­where turned out to be a har­row­ing ex­pe­ri­ence.

"There were no jobs for me. I took my re­jec­tion and at night I prayed to God to help me so I will have a fu­ture."

He be­came in­ter­est­ed in play­ing in­stru­ments af­ter view­ing YouTube mu­sic videos.

"I start­ed play­ing the gui­tar when I was around 18 or 19-years-old. I just de­cid­ed to pick up the in­stru­ment and try. Mu­sic wasn't re­al­ly my pas­sion, but due to my cir­cum­stances I had to turn to an al­ter­na­tive where I can make mon­ey. It has be­come what I love now," said the well-spo­ken Ra­goo­nanan.

"I am do­ing this be­cause I have no choice. I need mon­ey, I have a daugh­ter to take care of. I want to go some­where in life. I don't want to stay home and do noth­ing. I want to set an ex­am­ple for my daugh­ter."

He is tak­ing class­es with a Swedish mu­sic tu­tor and is purs­ing CXC sub­jects in mu­sic.

"I am at a grade eight with the gui­tar, a grade five with the vi­o­lin and grade four with pi­ano. Hope­ful­ly I will get a schol­ar­ship. I want to go to Amer­i­ca where there are sys­tems in place for peo­ple like my­self."

But, even on the streets he has hard time. "Some store own­ers do not even want me to stand in front their busi­ness to play my gui­tar. School­child­ren some­times try to steal my mon­ey. Some peo­ple don't re­alise I am blind and they make in­sult­ing re­marks."

De­spite this, he is op­ti­mistic about his fu­ture. "I firm­ly be­lieve I am go­ing to make it."

Ra­goo­nanan has the sup­port of his aunt who is not ashamed by how he makes his mon­ey. "It has been very hard for him. When peo­ple see vi­su­al­ly-im­paired peo­ple they don't know how to treat them," Seemu­n­gal said.

She proud­ly re­called that at age 14, Ra­goo­nanan went to Pak­istan where he played a crick­et match with the West In­dies blind crick­et team.

What is mac­u­lar de­gen­er­a­tion

Ac­cord­ing to the Amer­i­can Mac­u­lar De­gen­er­a­tion Foun­da­tion mac­u­lar de­gen­er­a­tion is an in­cur­able eye dis­ease that is the lead­ing cause of vi­sion loss for those aged 55 and old­er in the Unit­ed States, af­fect­ing more than ten mil­lion Amer­i­cans.

It re­sults in a loss of vi­sion in the cen­tre of the vi­su­al field (the mac­u­la) be­cause of dam­age to the reti­na. It oc­curs in "dry" and "wet" forms. It is a ma­jor cause of blind­ness and vi­su­al im­pair­ment in old­er adults -http://en.wikipedia.org/wi­ki/Mac­u­lar_de­gen­er­a­tion#Caus­es_and_risk_fac­tors