Tamil Nadu   

Will this visually challenged student’s dream come true?

— Photo: N. Rajesh.

HARDSHIP: P. Anand with his sister at Sattankulam.

Tuticorin: The dream of a poverty-stricken visually impaired State topper in the Plus Two examination of becoming a civil servant is gradually dispersing in tears as he cannot get assistance from any quarters to pursue his studies.

Though P. Anand of North Car Street in Sattankulam of Tuticorin district lost his vision due to diabetic retinopathy when he was just five years old, the physical disability and abject poverty never threatened his thirst for learning and moving up in life as he got 447 in Secondary School Leaving Certificate examination and has now got 1,047 in Plus Two examination held in last March.

The enviable score has eventually put him first among the blind students in the entire state.

“Except a shield given by the district administration immediately after the results were declared, no other official assistance reached me to purse my studies even after I forwarded appeals to the officials concerned,” says Anand, who has to be administered with insulin twice a day. His father M. Periya Esakki, working in a grocery shop at Chennai, and the boy’s elder brother P. Madasamy, a van driver in the State capital, cannot bear the daily medical expenses and educational expenditures.

“Though my ultimate dream is becoming an IAS officer, I’ve understood that my family background will never allow me even to try for that. I want to become a teacher at least, but the financial situation again prevents me from joining a teacher training institute. Hence, I expect the State Government or philanthropists to come to my rescue,” he says.

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