By Mahesh Trivedi, TwoCircles.net
Gujarat: The truth that education is a companion which no misfortune can take away dawned upon four poor Muslim students of Ahmedabad’s FD High School early on in their life.
The four students remained glued to their books round the year to emerge as top rankers in Class XII (general stream) examination, the results of which were recently declared by the Gujarat Education Board.
The four students, two of them blind, faced countless stumbling blocks like unlettered parents, humble dwellings and paltry cash but reached the top by their sheer determination, making their teachers and parents feel proud.
Visually-impaired Talha Ganchi, the top scorer in his category, had a normal vision and always stood first in class in school till he cleared 7th standard. But soon his eyesight started weakening and the brainy boy found himself groping in the dark.
One fine day while he was in Class IX, his world turned upside-down as he became blind as a bat but, thanks to his elder brother Gufran, a college drop-out, the bookworm saw light at the end of the tunnel and carried on with his studies.
According to Gufran, a humble tailor, Talha continued to attend his normal school instead of joining a school for the sightless and learning the Braille script. Gufran would make his brother listen to motivational speeches to boost his morale even as the expensive treatment of his father’s kidney ailment had bled the family white with not even an ordinary television set at home.
Worried stiff though he was about his ailing, widowed mother and two stone-blind elder siblings, Talha burnt midnight oil, concentrating on his all-important studies with a helping hand from Harshida Mehta, a special educator from the Blind People’s Association. With the result, Talha cleared his examination with a record 53 per cent though he needed only 20 per cent to pass muster.
“Luckily for me and another blind student Fahad, Mehta Madam took the initiative to not only teach us separately for hours on end but also arrange books, cellphones and scholarships for us,” Talha, who now wants to study physiotherapy told TwoCircles.net.
Fahad, starry-eyed but blind since birth, left his poverty-stricken parents in Palanpur after passing Class X and came to Ahmedabad for further studies to fulfil their dreams. He managed to stay in a hostel and study the Quran but no regular school was ready to enrol a blind student till Gujarati-medium FD High School, which focuses on character and personality development, agreed to admit him after Mehta promised to coach him.
Book-smart Fahad, the only brother among two sisters, would be busy with school books during daytime and would also study Islam in the evening.
Pining now and then for his labourer father and mother back home in Palanpur, he often walked to the school some 1.5 km away and, along with Talha, had to sit in the open in the school playground for learning from his Braille books. He would never mind the disturbance from other boys and girls making discordant, deafening noises during their physical training period.
The FD High School’s subject of logic in Class XII being difficult for the visionless, Fahad had to choose geography instead but he passed the crucial examination with flying colours with 46 per cent, next only to Talha.
Vasim Rangrej has set an enviable record by scoring 99.24 per cent despite the fact that the 17-year-old had no one to guide him as he stays with his down-at-heel parents in Juhapura, the largest Muslim ghetto in Asia.
According to Gena M Husain, retired principal, two years ago when his father engaged in labour work in a cloth market could not buy him a pen drive. The heart-broken high-schooler decided to make money by distributing newspapers which he continues even now.
Indeed, even on the day the government website declared Class XII results in the wee hours, he was congratulated by his friends on his cell phone but he completed his routine by cycling to about 110 homes with the day’s papers.
Vasim, who dreams of mastering chartered accountancy, told TwoCircles.net that one should not spend hours to learn by rote but should devote only a couple of hours to understand and absorb in mind.
Alsania Shaikh, daughter of a garage mechanic and a little better off than her three colleagues, had set a goal to secure the highest marks by studying for eight to ten hours. Despite offering prayers five times a day and taking an active part in the outdoor activities of FD High School for Girls at Jamalpur, she has been able to chalk up an astounding 99.75 per cent.
“I had scored 97 per cent in Class X. So I wanted to score more than that in Class XII,” Shaikh, youngest among four siblings, said, adding that if she did not understand something, she used to instantly ask her teachers and clear her doubts.
“Alsania listened to teachers in class with rapt attention and respected them. She was an obedient student with good manners and so all teachers supported her,” says her school principal Anisha Shaikh.