The world is not limited by what you see, and Ms Amutha Kulasekaran is living testament to this.
Many who visited the Deepavali Festival of Lights Market at the Indian Heritage Centre in Little India last month would have noticed her jewellery stall on display – not just for the gems on offer, but also because it was helmed by a visually-impaired person.
Ms Amutha, 41, is fully blind in one eye and partially blind in the other.
She is just off the blocks in the jewellery business, having founded Regal Lifestyle SG last April. The business sells imitation jewellery with unique designs, such as bangles with a Pongal pot imprint and Mahalakshmi jhumkas (earrings).
While Ms Amutha can see if someone is in front, her vision is blurry at best, and she often can’t make out who the person is. To identify jewels, she has to bring them up close to her eye or take a zoomed-in photo and focus on it for a few seconds.
Six years ago, Ms Amutha was driving when she suddenly sensed the lines on the road disappearing. Remarkably, she hadn’t known that she was blind in one eye for some years. A doctor revealed this to her when he diagnosed her with meningioma. A growing tumour in her optic nerve had already obstructed her right eye and was starting to block her left eye too.
She recalled how the doctor had asked her: “Your right eye has no vision. How did you live with it all this while?”
At the time, Ms Amutha was working at ST Logistics, a job she held since the age of 17. When she learnt of her eye condition, she transferred from an operations role to an administrative one.
“I love driving big vehicles like lorries. But I had to tell my bosses that I could not drive or operate the forklift anymore. They downgraded me from executive operations to a procurement and admin role,” she told tabla!
“But later, in my admin role, the tumour began to cover my left eye too. When I typed and sent quotations, I started mixing up digits. I couldn’t ask my boss to create another job for me. So I had to leave the company.”
The next six months were especially difficult for Ms Amutha, a divorcee with a 14-year-old son. “Staring at four walls every day, I felt like I was going crazy. I had to go out and interact with others,” she said.
Having always been interested in jewellery, she decided to turn her passion into a business. She contacted two ex-schoolmates – Ganga Uthiansoorian, 40, and Ranjni Kesavan, 41 – who agreed to help with the new venture.
Ms Amutha invested her savings into the business and used her connections in India to source for jewels.
When she received the goods, her two friends acted as her “eyes”.
“As her friend, we couldn’t leave her like this,” said Ms Ranjni. “She has many talents that can’t go to waste. When she pitched to us the idea for this business, we readily agreed to help.”
Whenever they get time off from their full-time jobs, they head down to Ms Amutha’s home and help her to sell the jewellery on a livestream (via livestreams on Facebook and Instagram @regallifestylesg).
“Initially, we would describe to her the jewellery’s shape, colour and properties. But over time, she was able to recognise them herself based on feel,” Ms Ranjni said.
“It helps that she’s a fashionable person, paying attention to how her jewellery matches clothes, so she is able to understand what customers want.”
Ms Amutha’s hard work since April was rewarded when she was offered to set up a stall at the Indian Heritage Centre for Deepavali.
“It was definitely a good start and there were many interested buyers. I’m doing this more to occupy myself than to make money,” said Ms Amutha.
“Just as beautiful as it is, life is equally difficult. I want to show the world that it is possible to succeed despite all these challenges.”
