at an auto workshop where he assigned the task of dismantling a clutch plate.
"I had to open the clutch plate and they were a little shocked because they thought my confidence showed that I had worked somewhere else too," he said.
The next part of his training involved taking apart a gear box.
"I said ´yes´ and lay under the car. I observed that the clutch plate we opened was put in with a flywheel and the area behind it was the gear," he said. “So I figured out the rounds of the gear and its foundations and in barely 15 minutes. I took it out and was done. When I opened and put the gear out, I gained their trust and they knew that this boy had some gift from God and could do this work."
Patel eventually bought his own car to train himself further to the intricacies of auto mechanics and started his career by swapping out engines.
And he is keen to distinguish himself as a true "mechanic" and not merely a fitter of parts, which he says any child can do.
"A mechanic´s work is to diagnose. Anyone can become a fitter. The main thing is to diagnose if there is a problem and why it is there," he said. "So it is a gift from Allah that I can find out what the fault actually is."
Happy customers
Fahad Younis, a 30-something client with his own car import-export business, drops off a Nissan Platz for repair. He says Patel´s customers come for one reason only: the quality of work.
"He fixes the problems whatever they are," he said. "We give him all our cars, big and small."
But it has not always been a smooth ride.
"Once I was experimenting with the engine and petrol and was squirting out from it. It caught fire and I had to throw sand on it to put it out," Patel recalled.
Another time, a jack collapsed while he was working under a car, dropping the vehicle on him.
"I didn´t worry too much about it, just lifted it up, put in another jack and carried on working," he said.
While some might rue their luck at being blind, Patel says he prefers to count his blessings — and insists he doesn´t really think of himself as disabled.
"If I ever felt that I was handicapped from something, I would not be able to do what I am doing right now," he said.
"If you do not have something from birth you do not think it is missing. But if it is there and taken from you, it hurts more."