|
August 15, 2000 @ 02:38 pm·Filed under
News
Personality: Alexis Leon survives a
crippling accident and becomes an internationally acclaimed author
of computer books
By Lukose Mathew, The
Week, 13th August 2000.
"When God closes all doors, He opens
a window. Often we spend so much energy banging on closed doors
that we forget to feel and enjoy the breeze coming through the
open window." - Chang Hsiao-Feng in her article in the
Reader's Digest, 'Lessons My Children Taught Me', and quoted by
Alexis Leon in his 'My Story'.
Cold air wafts out of the partly open door, behind which Alexis
Leon sits smiling in his wheelchair. As I make my way into his
air-conditioned house in Kochi, I forget to close the door.
"Please close it," he admonishes gently and wheels into
his study, covered by bookshelves on three sides. Positioning
himself before his computer, he mutters an apology and shuts it
down.
Everything about Alexis is prim, right from his table-top to
the way he speaks. His portly figure fits neatly into the
wheelchair which he maneuvers with élan. Practice, you would say,
but Alexis, who turned 34 last month, takes it further. "The
wheelchair has become a part of my body," he says, showing
how to jump small hurdles with it.
It has been seven years since a crippling accident wiped out
colors from his life; seven years since the wheelchair 'became a
part of my body'. He has not allowed his mind to go numb from the
shock of living with a paralyzed body. "I weighed 72 kilos
when I met with the accident. Now I might be 95 or even above 100
kilos," he jokes. His big tummy doesn't ripple in the
after-effects of his hearty laughter.
"In medical terms, my level of injury is T5,"
explains Alexis. "Which means I am paralyzed from chest
downwards. I am actually advised to wear a chest belt to prevent
myself from falling forward, but I need not do it thanks to my big
stomach, which acts as a sort of support."
It is difficult to believe that this is the same cheerful man
who wrote a small, brooding piece on his accident, titled 'My
Story', three years ago which began with a cryptic statement:
"I wish I were dead."
His marriage was only 24 days away when an autorickshaw,
ignoring the traffic signal, rammed into his Kinetic Honda at a
busy crossing in Chennai on the mid-noon of December 2, 1993.
Alexis was on his way to meet the girl and her family, who had
come down to Chennai from her native Kerala to purchase clothes
for the wedding. He fell on the road, injuring his forehead and
shoulder bone. More serious, though he did not know at that time,
was an injury to his spinal cord. He lay in a pool of blood till a
policeman dragged him to the floor of an autorickshaw.
"The auto ride further damaged the spinal cord,"
recalls Alexis. "At first they tried to fit me in
horizontally, but when they found that my frame would not fit in,
they placed me vertically. All the while I was in my senses,
though my shoulder was giving me shooting pain and my forehead
bleeding profusely. I asked them to take me to Malar Hospital in
Adyar, which was just 500 meters away from where I fell
down."
The doctors decided against immediate surgery because, after
seeing the X-ray, they thought his spinal cord had snapped and
there was no point in hurrying. When he was operated upon a week
later, the doctors found that the damage to the spinal cord was
not as severe as they had calculated. "I lost precious
days," says Alexis. "Had I been operated upon the very
first day my chances of recovery would have improved by 50 to 60
per cent."
A month and a half after the surgery, Alexis was shifted to the
Christian Medical College, Vellore, for physiotherapy and
occupational therapy. "All the while, everyone kept telling
that I will walk one day, and I believed it," he says. But
when an occupational therapist told him that his goal would be to
attain wheelchair independence he realized that he would never
walk again.
Once he was through with the rehab process, TCS welcomed him
back. Alexis had joined the company in 1992 and had proved his
efficiency working on the biggest software project bagged by an
Asian company. "It was a computerized securities clearing
system for the Swiss firm Sega/Intersettle," explains Alexis.
"Since it was a huge project, TCS had to set up a separate
unit. I was involved in three modules, before and after the
accident."
Before joining TCS, Alexis had worked with Ponds in Pondicherry
in its leather division. "I didn't like being a leather
man," he says. "Besides, working in leather industry is
harmful to health." He left Ponds for TCS with very little
computer expertise. He had only done a diploma in computer
programming and PC application while doing his M.Tech in
industrial engineering.
Alexis went through a three-month grueling schedule and quickly
learned the ropes. He even designed a program in Foxpro to help
the telephone operator track down TCS employees. "TCS is a
huge organization, and it was difficult to get the whereabouts of
employees," says Alexis. "Today you might be in Chennai,
tomorrow in California."
A whole lot of plans crashed in the accident. The company was
planning to send him to Switzerland, and he had clubbed the
official trip with his 'honeymoon'. He was also planning to do a
doctorate in industrial engineering in the US.
Though he was warmly welcomed at TCS after the accident, Alexis
was soon feeling out of place. Most of his friends had left for
greener pastures and the Sega project was almost over. Besides,
attending office every day was posing a problem. He submitted his
resignation but TCS gave him three months leave to reconsider his
decision. He quit after the period and, in partnership with a
friend, started Cybernet Software Systems in Chennai in 1996.
Alexis was its technical director and he could work from home.
By then Alexis had read a lot and had published his first book,
CICS-The Complete Book for Application Programmers, in 1995. Two
more books came out the same year. In five years, he has published
24 books on subjects ranging from business computing to Oracle and
PowerBuilder to Internet to software configuration management.
A book on IBM Mainframe he wrote with former colleague Gibu
Thomas sold 50,000 copies. Gibu was more than a colleague: he used
to visit Alexis every week in Vellore and the association
continues even now though he has moved to the US.
Alexis has collaborated on two books, on PowerBuilder, with
US-based software consultant Richard Brooks. After reading some of
Brooks's articles on PowerBuilder, Alexis had sought permission to
include an article of Brooks in a book he was writing. Brooks, who
has a keen interest in India and Buddhism, was only happy to
oblige. Alexis returned the favor when he contributed two articles
to a book written by Brooks. In 1997, the two combined to write
PowerBuilder 4, The Application Development Handbook and Zen of
PowerBuilder. "I have never met Brooks in person," says
Alexis. "But we often chat on the Net."
At present Alexis is writing two books on e-commerce. His
publishers include Comdex Computer Publishing, Tata McGraw-Hill
and Artech House Inc. He has set apart the royalties from
Countdown 2000, a book he edited, for the rehab department of the
Christian Medical College.
His latest book, A Guide to Software Configuration Management,
was published by Artech simultaneously in the UK and the US.
"The book was received well," says Alexis. "There
are only 8 or 9 books on the subject and this is the latest
one." He has also written several articles in the
Chennai-based DQ Week magazine.
At one time, Alexis was the headhunter for the US-based Analyst
International Corporation and conducted telephonic job interviews.
"They stopped taking people from India after the initial
recruits left the company for better jobs," he says.
In 1996 Alexis floated his own company, L & L Consultancy
Service Pvt. Ltd., with his engineer-brother Mathews, who has been
with him ever since the accident. The firm offers consultancy in
all areas related to computer and the Internet, including Web site
design and development. He is also the chief reviewer and Web
master for Pegasus Book Club.
A year later Alexis launched his own publishing firm, Win Leon
Publishing Private Ltd in Chennai, to bring out low-cost computer
books. "My earlier publisher was not paying me royalties
regularly," he says. "So I started the firm with my
brother and former Tata McGraw-Hill man P.K. Madhavan as
partners." The firm brings out computer books in the Rs 150
range, all written by Alexis and Mathews, and has an exclusive
distribution arrangement with Vikas, Delhi.
Alexis is a contented man today. Despite all that has happened
in his life, he has not let despondency seep in. True, he has his
bouts of depression, getting depressed occasionally is natural, he
says, but he overcomes them by listening to classical music and
watching television. He does feel sad when he thinks about the
things he lost in life, like the PhD and the pleasure of riding
bikes.
To be near to his parents, Alexis shifted his base to Kochi
this January. He doesn't go out these days, preferring to spend
time reading, he has an excellent collection of books on subjects
ranging from thrillers to computers to management. And writing. He
hopes to write his autobiography one day and has a title ready,
'Reinventing the Wheel'.
|
