#UnlearnToRise - Shreyas Parkar

This World Inclusion Day, we bring you #UnlearnToRise, a new series continuing our conversations around unconscious bias. Through real stories from across Mahindra, we look at the assumptions we make about people and the beliefs we need to unlearn to create a more inclusive workplace.

“I am Shreyas Prakash Parkar. I had speech and hearing difficulties as a child and began my education at a Central school for the deaf, Agripada. That is also where I discovered swimming. What started as weekly school training eventually took me to national competitions and the Deaf Olympics, where I finished 8th in the 4x100m freestyle relay.

But swimming was only one part of my journey. I learnt to play the guitar, pursued drawing and photography, trained in shooting, skating and sea surfing, and completed a course in 3D Animation. My father always reminded me that education was important, but life had many other things to offer too. He encouraged me to discover what I could do and become good at it. That belief stayed with me.

In 2014, I joined Mahindra Susten as a Graphic Designer. With the support of my colleagues and mentors, I grew in my role while continuing to pursue competitive sport. After COVID, I took up Air Pistol shooting and today I am ranked among the Top 8 players nationally.

I am also a husband and a father to a young daughter, while continuing to balance my career, family and sporting ambitions. Looking back, I realise that my hearing impairment has been one part of my story, but it has never been the whole story. There is so much more to discover when we stop asking “What can’t this person do?” and start asking “What can they do?”

This is how I #UnlearnToRise.