CHENNAI: Listening to the radio, he was standing behind the counter as we stepped into his shop at LIBA (Loyola Institute of Business Administration). With just a ‘Hi' from an old student who accompanied us, this visually challenged shop owner broke into a wide smile. Ask any student from LIBA where they get their stationery from and they all say, ‘Vijay anna!'

Vijay Shekar has been doing his business for the last 10 years. “I was in my late 30s when I asked for permission to set up a PCO in the campus. But when mobile phones appeared, there was no need for a PCO. So, I decided to open a stationery shop and I’ve been handling it since.”

You think he’d probably have a couple of helpers or at least an accountant? No. He takes care of everything and to him it's not a big deal.  A student enters for a top-up. He takes out one of his many Nokia B70s, and his fingers dance over the keys while the voiceover tries to keep up with his speed. “It’s just practice,” he says as he reaches for the money, measures the length of the note and passes on the exact change. Having an excellent memory, Vijay can remember over 100 phone numbers of his student customers who regularly come by for a top up. Oh! And he hated maths in school.
 

While the radio crackled in the background and we looked at his stock, we asked him if he had ever been cheated or stolen from. He smiles, “No. That’s never happened before and even if I’m put down, I don’t lose my temper. I know that there are people with various characters and everyone faces difficulty in his/her life. You just need to be brave and move on. Nothing frightens me and I’ve had complete strangers go out of their way to help me too,” he says, sharing an incident where a young girl, took him in her car and dropped him at the MRTS station. Vijay lives in Chromepet and for the last 15 years, he has been taking the same train every day to Nungambakkam. He knows his way and the regular commuters have become his friends. That moment, another student comes in and asks for a strawberry-flavoured milkshake. He walks to the fridge, pulls the right flavour out, collects the money, pockets it and waits for us to shoot another question. We couldn’t help but smile.

Though he was born with retinitis pigmentosa and couldn’t see at night, it was not until Class 10 when he lost his sight completely. Didn’t it upset him? “I have no regrets in life, I’m happy and I want to continue living my life exactly the way it is. I never got married because years ago, I wasn’t financially stable. But now, I have the responsibility of my nieces and nephews and I love them all.” Vijay is happy in his world among students who encourage him, his successful small business and his radio that keeps him updated about current events around the world and at the time of leisure, fill his ears with the classic 80s tunes.
Source: http://www.newindianexpress.com/cities/chennai/This-shopkeeper-has-blind-trust-in-customers/2016/09/29/article3632160.ece