There is nothing unusual in the 84.9% that Shalini, a 17-year-old from Bengaluru scored. Many of us have scored similar or higher percentages. What is unusual is the fact that she did it despite working as domestic help in five houses and helping to look after her sick brother and invalid father.
Her father has been bed-ridden since she was seven years old, after he fell off a building. For years, her mother worked as a domestic help in several houses so she could provide for Shalini and her younger brother. But another blow struck earlier this year when her younger brother was diagnosed with third stage blood cancer.
The responsibility to provide an income came upon Shalini’s shoulders too in order to help her mother cope with the new setback. She took over all her mother’s part-time jobs and divided the rest of her time between sitting with her brother at the hospital or her father at home – always with a book in her hand though.
“If I had not put in so much time in the hospital, I might have scored better,” she told the Mirror. “But my brother is more important to me than marks.”
Now, she’s preparing for the Common Entrance Test, a competitive exam for admissions in medical, dental and engineering courses in professional colleges in India.
Shalini’s story sort of makes us relook our own scores and achievements, earned from within the cosy confines of our homes with our parents’ support and without having to wonder where our next meal would come from. It doesn’t mean we are of deserving it, it just means that Shalini deserves every miniscule decimal point added to her score and much, much more.
It’s a commendable feat to aspire and achieve under such debilitating circumstances and she did it with a smile.
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