Jai Prakash Sunda, fondly known as JP to all of us in TISA, is an IT professional of 26 years, from Chandigarh. He was born in a hard working farming community in a village in Haryana, North India. His childhood was spent in many Indian cities since his father worked for Indian Air force and was transferred frequently. As a teenager he was given speech therapy in Chandigarh, which did little to help him. He somehow went through university, earned a B Tech in IT and was quite surprised (and relieved) when Infosys, a global IT giant, selected him!

Difficulties on job, began surfacing soon: Communicating with others was so difficult since others had no clue to the problems he was facing and he did not feel FREE to talk about it. All the good work went unappreciated in absence of open two way communication. He felt so de-motivated, that going to office day after day became unbearable. He had another go at speech therapy in Pune but it did not help much.

He got in touch with TISA and got the cryptic reply: Join the SHG! But where was the SHG in Pune? Who was coming to it? Finally he decided to start a SHG himself, right there in Infosys. Fortunately the HR unit understood and helped him. He organized one of the early Communication workshop in Pune on 4th and 5th July 2009 (link). While helping other pws, he began to find his own answers. Trying to motivate others to attend SHG meetings, challenged him and awakened his inner faith in himself and resilience. This self appointed role involved varied and demanding tasks like talking to media, negotiating with seniors in Infosys, managing participants who tended to monopolize SHG meetings or object to anything and everything etc. (He shares the story in a contribution to ISAD online conference in 2010)

He was opening up, he was talking about stammering and he was developing a large measure of comfort while doing so. All this gave him first hand experience of what he had to foresee and manage as a TISA trustee later (he was inducted in TISA board on 1st August 2010).

A deeper dissatisfaction with life still haunted him and he came to Samagra (Herbertpur) as a volunteer on a SIX MONTH sabbatical in 2009 (his IT contribution). During this period he worked with sachin and his team- Vijay, Anil, Pawan, Parmanand and others (link). He systematically read writings by Jane Fraser, Joseph Sheehan, Peter Reitzes etc. and practiced meditation. He watched many stammering related videos available in Samagra library.

Whatever he read and grasped, he practiced by conducting group therapy for children who stammer (link), in the nearby schools (link) and in individual counseling sessions with pws. He also facilitated Herbertpur Self help group and learned a lot from its members. Every stammerers' story told him something: what works and what does not, in the long run; diverse personal paths to recovery etc. He also began contributing to TISA blog off and on around this time. This six month sabbatical brought in some deep changes- foremost, in his understanding of his inner issues and about stammering in general.

Soon after return to Pune, he took a major step with great courage: he resigned from Infosys and returned to Chandigarh, to spend sometime with family. He also utilized this period to explore his inner world- What do I fear? Why? what will I do if I did not fear this or that? While working as a tele-worker from home, he began facilitating Chandigarh SHG by setting up mini workshops, other events and counseling individual members.

He has been not just setting up but also facilitating our Communication workshops (Herbertpur, Goa, Delhi etc.). In this phase, he read Eckhart Tolle and explored the meaning of alienation, which stammering or any difference, produces among us; the importance of being in the present moment, in the "now"- even when you are stammering- and how it helps you to transcend the limitations set on us by the stigma. The good work he begun in Pune in 2009, continues and radiates out in the form of many individuals who meet through two self help groups in Pune and elsewhere.

He specializes in contact center softwares and software testing.  He is a good photographer and ardent traveler too.

As a TISA Coordinator, his priority, in his own words, is to "Promote self-help through Communication workshops & SHGs". To learn more about his ideas for coming years, watch the video interview (Part 1, Part 2)  We all congratulate him and pray for strength and wisdom for him.

sachin (Trustee)
PS: BTW- Most important, he is a bachelor, available and not finicky about fluency of dating partners!