VADODARA: A peep into Kiran Rathwa’s rickety house paints the picture of abject poverty that his family lives in. There is no gas connection and his mother painstakingly blows the chulha to cook food and the family struggles to make two ends meet.
But Kiran is all set to change the fortunes of his tribal family by becoming a doctor in the future. From running away from his residential school twice to securing a seat in medicine this tribal boy has travelled a long distance from the far-flung Zher village of Pavijetpur taluka in Chhotaudepur district.
Kiran passed his standard 12 exams and National Eligibility Cum Entrance Test (NEET) this year and made it to the second merit list for medical admissions. He is open to joining any medical college in the state to become a doctor.
Kiran’s family survives on around three bighas of land and the hard labour that family members do. According to Kiran, one of his three brothers is presently unemployed while two others take up masonry work. His three sisters are married and one is still in school.
Kiran studied in a school in Chhotaudepur district till standard 5 and after this his parents got him admitted to the Eklavya Model Residential School academically managed by the Navrachana Education Society in Vejalpur near Godhra in Panchmahal district.
Not willing to stay away from his parents and home, Kiran ran away from the school twice. “I did not like it there and wanted to go back home,” he says.
School’s music teacher Gopal Patel who shares a close bond with Kiran as he too was interested in learning music, said that Kiran had once managed to reach his home on his own. “On another occasion, we brought him back from the Godhra bus depot,” said Patel. But all that was to change soon.
From standard seven, Kiran started settling down in the school. “By standard nine, I was confident that I could do well and wanted to be a doctor,” he said. He started working hard along with his teachers to ensure that he got enough marks to make the cut. He scored 61.8 per cent in standard 12 Gujarat board exams and got a NEET ranking that could ensure that he had a chance of getting a seat in medicine.
“Most students who did well at our school are from better financial and educational backgrounds. Largely, they are either wards of teachers or other government servants. Kiran is the only one who has defied all odds and managed to make the cut for medicine,” said principal of the school Bhadresh Suthar.
“I will go wherever I get an admission for studying medicine,” says Kiran. For other like him Kiran says that they should work hard and use the opportunities that the government provides them with.
Kiran is all set to change the fortunes of his tribal family by becoming a doctor in the future.
