Andhra Pradesh - Tirupati   

Winning laurels despite odds

— Photo: K.V. Poornachandra Kumar

Focussed: Rayala Divya, who has emerged as the State carrom champion braving her hearing and speech impairment, in Piler of Chittoor district.

TIRUPATI: For Rayala Divya, silence is a way of concentrating. She does not deliberately stay silent, but is rather forced to. Overcoming her aural and speech impairment, the SSC student has excelled in carroms, Yoga, dance and painting.

Divya, a native of Piler town in Chittoor district, studies at Samatha Vidyalaya in Tirupati, a school run exclusively for the hearing impaired.

She comfortably won the gold medal at the State-level carrom competitions conducted by the Department of Disabled Welfare and Senior Citizens as part of ‘World Disabled Day' on December 3. She received the award from Chief Minister N.Kirankumar Reddy, who interestingly is their local legislator.

Endowed with congenital hearing loss of close to 100 per cent, the girl has also failed to speak due to the inability to hear.

However, she went on to win a gold medal in Yoga competitions conducted by Chittoor District Yoga Association, in association with an NGO, Society for Human Empowerment (SHE).

She also won first prize in the painting competition conducted by Tirupati Film Society (TIFISO).

Divya was no expert in carroms till she started playing with her father R.Sudhakar, an advocate. Similarly, she knew nothing of Yoga, till she started learning the basics from her mother P.V.S.Lakshmi, a member of the local Zilla Parishad Territorial Constituency (ZPTC). A social activist-turned-politician, Lakshmi did not sob like an ordinary mother, but completed B.Ed Special Education, with focus on dealing with hearing impaired children, especially to groom her daughter. She also did a diploma course in Yoga on learning of her daughter's interest in Yoga.

“Having a separate ministry for disabled welfare alone can get rid of the discrimination the impaired people are facing,” she avers and vows to give Divya and her ilk their due.

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