No country for disabled

This is not a country for the physically-disabled. There are, of course, laws in place, but in reality, it exists only in court rooms and on paper. My father, who is a lawyer, has had to file cases for me.

The system here doesn’t support people like us. I am deaf, suffer from retinitis pigmentosa, a disorder of the eyes, which causes a gradual loss of vision. My speech is impaired, but I have undergone speech therapy. So, people around me can understand what I say, but maybe not everyone. I am currently studying B. Arch at the School of Planning and Architecture, but I may have to leave it soon. I am 23-years-old and I should have been in the third year in college, but I’m still in the first year. I had to take a gap year in between because I had fallen ill, and the college authorities have persistently been against me. There was a project work in Jaipur, but I wasn’t allowed to go with the students. The college authorities informed us that they didn’t have anyone to go with me. I have got a 50 per cent scholarship to Morrisville State University of New York.

But, even then, if my parents have to fund the rest of it, they have to sell our ancestral property. I completed my schooling from Navy Children’s School. It was a regular school and after that my troubles to pursue education began. I could not give the IIT-JEE mains that year because I was in hospital for a lung surgery on the examination date. My lungs had cracked. I used to swim earlier, now I am not allowed to and I can’t exert myself either. By the time I was released from the hospital, most entrance exams were over; the only one remaining was the DU-CIC exam. I cleared the exam, but they refused to admit me. I had applied to Ram Lal Anand College and got admission into the Geoplogy department. I wasn’t really interested in it; building design and construction is what I like. In 2015, I wrote the IITJEE exams and was ranked 77. The authorities at the School of Planning and Architecture were not willing to admit me, then my parents approached the court.

The college had to admit me, but they called my parents to ask them to withdraw my application. They said that they haven’t tutored any physically-disabled children. According to the law, there should be a special educator and counsellor in every college to assist students like me, but the School of Planning and Architecture doesn’t have it. It is not easy to keep up one’s spirits in such an atmosphere. It is depressing. There are days when I lose my will to live. There is no state support; my parents have been struggling to ensure I am educated. I have been told that I could probably hear if I have a cochlear implant surgery, but it costs `29 lakh. It is not affordable. I am a UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation) Youth Volunteer and I have been requesting world body to pay more attention to the differently abled. Initially, I wrote to the Union HRD ministry for two years, but they never responded and then I started writing to the UN and they responded.

I was a guest of the International Court of Justice in April 2016. My 2D model of the UNESCO headquarters has been installed at their office in Paris; I had presented it to the Director General of UNESCO in Paris. I began to use my sketching skills to get people to notice me. I have presented portraits to the vice president Venkaiah Naidu, former secretary general of the UN, Ban Ki-moon and Dalveer Bhandari, the Indian judge at the International Court of Justice, among others. Once, I was back, I fell ill for a few months. I had to be admitted in the hospital because of infections and because of that I had to miss a year in college. Eventually, when I went back, they were not receptive to my needs. They even asked my mother to attend the classes with me so that she could be my tutor, but after a month, I refused it. I don’t think my mother should come with me to college. How can I ever be a regular student then? They wouldn’t respect my mother either. She would request them for written material, but they wouldn’t oblige. During one of my UN events in Delhi, we had requested the UN HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar to assist us; he had ensured that he would enable my studies at IIT. I am being awarded the National Gaurav Award at Vigyan Bhavan later this month and after that I hope to meet him. If he helps me with my admission at IIT, then it will be great, otherwise I will have to opt to study abroad