Telangana: Tribal farmer’s disabled daughter aces JEE, hopes to change destiny

HYDERABAD: R Umeshwari, a 17-year-old with substantial locomotor disability, was mocked at for most of her childhood because of her stunted gait. To make matters worse, she came from a poor tribal family. Her father often takes informal loans at high interest rates just to make ends meet.
But no one is mocking Umeshwari today. She secured All-India Rank of 2 in the Scheduled Tribe persons with disability (PwD) category, in the latest JEE Advanced results.
A student of a Telangana government-run tribal welfare school at Kalwakurthy, she is keen to get admission to the prestigious IIT, Madras, in the computer science stream.
But her dream of becoming an IITian is a classic case of so-near-yet-so-far. "For our family the fight is far from over," she says. "A day after the results, my entire family is tense. Sending me away to a new state and financing my education is not going to be easy. For us, getting the rank is only the first step in the journey of the next few years of hard work before we can celebrate success."
She adds that even being able to consider the possibility of making it to one of the top IITs in the country is surreal.
"I come from a small village called Peddavemoloni Bavi Thanda in Kadthal where my parents struggle to make ends meet, for our family of six, with paddy farming. My father and two of my siblings are also disabled, which has made things tough for us, but my admission to an IIT will hopefully change our destiny."
She adds that till about two years ago, she did not even know what "IIT" stood for.
"I didn't know much about the IITs back then, in Inter first year," she says. "It is difficult to know about such things because my father studied only till Class 10 and my mother is illeterate. I am the first person to even study till Intermediate. So, clearing JEE is a dream for all of us."
The journey so far was also fraught with challenges and discrimination. “It was hard to put up with all the taunts and jeers, as I grew up,” Umeshwari says.