How do you feel when you are in little pain? You don't get out of your bed for hours and have sound slee? Right. But what if your parents disown you saying you have to choose studies or them? Obviously you will stay with your parents. But this girl, Ummul Kher, was disowned by her parents when she was just 14, living with fragile bone disorder since she was a kid, has ranked 420 across India, hopes to get IAS under disability quota.
Her parents disowned her because she wanted to study beyond Class 8. What took her ahead was sheer merit and determination as she went on to get admission in a prestigious Delhi University college and later entered JNU for her master’s. This week she cracked the civil services exam in her first attempt.Kher, who has received 16 fractures and eight surgeries due to her disease, came to Delhi from Rajasthan when she was around five years old. Her father then worked as street vendor selling clothes near Hazrat Nizamuddin while the family lived in a nearby slum.
“It was a charitable organisation run by the government and I didn’t have to pay anything. Though getting one square meal was difficult, I was satisfied that I could at least study,” she said. Life was difficult, but what came after that was “both difficult and painful” as Kher puts it.
“I was abused. My intentions were questioned because I wanted to study. It was the worst time. They said you have now got more education than a girl should,” she said.
Well on one side we see, students like Ganesh and other students clearing their higher studies with fake results and on other side, girl like Ummul Kher, who inspite of her disability and disowned by her parents, dedicately studies and scored so great marks.