NEW DELHI/DEHRADUN: “There has not been a single moment in my life when I have felt I am lesser than anyone,” said Pooja Kumar on Saturday. Her assertion underlined her achievement of securing a remarkable 97.8% in the CBSE Class XII exams. The student of
National Institute for Visually Handicapped in Dehradun is fully blind.
The humanities student returned perfect papers in history, political science and Hindi, and obtained 96 in sociology and 93 in English. Her score is the highest ever in the history of her institute. “I have worked hard like everyone else and wanted to prove to the world that I could stand on my own feet,” Kumar told TOI. She wants to go to Delhi and continue her studies in either St Stephen's or
Lady Shri Ram College. “This will help me fulfil my civil services dreams,” the 19-year-old said.
Resident of Arwal district of Bihar, she was brought to NIVH by her sceptical father, Kush Kumar. Her achievement has dispelled all doubts that the girl wouldn’t manage to chase her dreams. “She regularly stayed awake till late in the night reading her textbooks and we scolded her for not taking care of her health,” the proud father said on Saturday. “However, all her hard work has paid off and I am sure she will achieve great heights in life.”
Hundreds of miles away in Patna,
Lavanya Jha received an elated call from her school informing her that she had obtained 97.4%. The 17-year-old had returned to
Patna only a few weeks ago after two years of living alone in Delhi — the sole objective of separation from family being “getting good exposure”. She hardly explored the city during the time, despite having her elder sister in IP University. The privations, however, yielded results. Jha topped Delhi in the disabled category.
“I want to study psychology, which is my favourite subject, in
Delhi University,” said Jha, who has 45% visual impairment. “I hope I get admission in Lady Shri Ram College.”
Sabreena Bansal, Jha’s class teacher at
Delhi Public School,
RK Puram, said that despite her student’s vision problems, she let no hurdles stand in her way and was always self-reliant. Aishwarya Raina, her sociology teacher, also testified, “Lavanya always asked us not to give her any special favours.”
Despite such protestations, the school did help her in many ways. “We would give her question papers printed using a larger font size, even though Lavanya would always say that everything related to exams should be the same for everyone,” said Preeti Pratihari, the psychology teacher. Pratihari added, “In fact, before she came up to me, I didn’t realise that she was visually challenged.”
