Syyed Mansoor Agha narrates the success story of Ummul Khair, who has become cynosure of all eyes when she cracked UPSC Exams in her first attempt this year.
Name a disability, physical, social or economic, one will find all hunting Ummul Khair from tender age till youth. Defeating all disabilities and odds, she earned headlines after she cracked UPSC Exams in her first attempt this year and ranked 420 out of 1099 (not 1999). Overcoming all odds, she achieved her goal which she had set at the age of 7, when she was a class 2 student of a dilapidated school. She has suddenly become a celebrity. Print and visual media is abuzz of her stories and interviews. To-day she is “the lady with the lamp of hope and inspiration” for coming generations.
Khair was born in BPL family at the village Pali in Rajasthan with “brittle bone disease” or “Osteogenesis Imperfecta (OI), which results in fragile bones that break easily. So she had 16 fractures and 8 surgeries through her childhood. She was only 10 months old, when a family dispute arose and her father dumped her sick mother and moved to Delhi. He married a woman from Delhi to create a new world for himself.
At home, it was her grandmother who stood up to take care of the sick daughter-in-law and baby Khair. Perhaps it was Midday Meal facility under Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), aimed at universalisation of elementary education that she was enrolled with the local primary school. She passed her class 5 exams with good marks. At this juncture her grandmother persuaded the disgruntled son to take at least Khair with him. Her shift to new destination, leaving behind her ailing mother and old grandma became a bitter experience of her childhood. Her new mother was harsh and hostile to her studies. She will switch off light or repeatedly call her for domestic work whenever she is busy doing her homework.
Here another calamity befell the family in 2001. Their tarpaulin topped Jhuggi, which stood in the filthy clusters at the bank of city drain, near the tomb of Abdul Rahim Khan Khana, in Hzt. Nizamuddin was razed to ground to erect pillars for elevated Barapulla Road connecting East Delhi to South. Here is a strange dilemma. While facility was being created for haves, the cluster residents were being deprived of their shelters and livelihood. Her father’s teashop was demolished. The family took refuge in another slum at Trilokpuri. Here a kind school teacher helped Khair to get admission in a private school under “The Amar Jyoti Charitable Trust”. Impressed by her talent, the school fully funded her education till class 8 and also provided some help for the next few years.
In 2003 when Khair was in class 8th, her sick mother slipped into the ultimate abode of heavens. She was bed ridden for years and away from her eyes, yet, like all mothers, she was an un-banished source of love, affection and strength to her. Round the corner came another challenge. After she passed her class 8th, the father and the step-mother disowned her for her insistence to continue the education beyond class 8th. She told HT, “I was abused. My intentions were questioned. They said you have now got more education than a girl should. Now learn some tailoring to earn. It was the worst time for me.” She told a reporter, “My mother thought I have studied enough. She was an uneducated woman from Old Delhi. But this happens even in educated families that they undermine daughters. Big competitions are not meant for girls.”
Khair took the deep shock upon herself. She decided not to budge and continue education at any cost. She told her mother either she should continue education or should die. She had lived utter poverty, and was deeply convinced that only education can break the vicious circle and change our destiny. The young girl of 14 took an extraordinarily tough decision to leave the father’s shelter and rent another Jhuggi for herself. Here she started taking tuition classes to earn for livelihood. She agreed, “Living independently was a big challenge. That also meant to earn for livelihood.” She started taking tuitions. “Numbers of students grew from few to many and expanded to four batches — 3 pm to 5 pm, 5 pm to 7 pm, 7 pm to 9 pm and then 9 pm to 11 in the night.” She told a reporter, “Mostly children were from slum areas and I got between Rs 50-100 a month from each one. I couldn’t have expected more as these were children of labourers, iron-smiths, rickshaw-pullers, etc.”
Consider how little time she would have for her self-study. She has to clean her room, to wash her dress, cook food and clean utensils in between her schooling, studying and taking tuition classes. In between these all adversities, she earned 91 per cent marks in her class 12th exam. She was lucky to get admission in the most reputed Gargi College for Women of DU, in BA (Applied Psychology). Daily up and down to college from her room was also a challenge for her as a little accident will prove disastrous for a fragile person. And it happened so when she met an accident in 2012 that bound her to a wheelchair for a whole year.
After graduating, she earned a PG seat at JNU in International Relations with 100 per cent scholarship with an additional means-cum-merit Rs 2000 a month. She then went on to crack the Junior Research Fellowship (JRF) through which she started getting Rs 25,000 a month. Her dissertation on the status of Physically Challenged in Russia earned scholarly reputation for her. Khair got associated with several voluntary groups working on disability. She was honoured with a Role Model for her extraordinary work on disability by the National Commission for Women in 2015. She has represented disability rights groups in various countries.
Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’alaa has gifted this girl with immense capacity of standing against odds, firm determination, vision and capacity to convert her dream into reality. From the beginning till college she has been a Hindi Medium student but she also privately learned reading and writing Urdu. She has also learned reading the Qur’ān and practises all virtues of Islam. She is also very humble, well-mannered and sharp minded. She has developed remarkable proficiency in English also. In 2011, when she was struggling to improve her English, she joined Personality Development Workshop of 40 days at India Islamic Cultural Centre. Paying heavy fees to an English institute was beyond her reach. In this workshop, under the guidance of Mohd Munawwar Zaman of Hyderabad, she transformed from novice to master of the language. At the end of workshop she delivered a spontaneous speech. The audience was impressed by the content and the style of speaking. As she finished, Dr. Farooq Abdullah, the chief guest, asked her to narrate how to cook Biryani. Her humble reply was perfect answer to the Union Minister and former Chief Minister of only Muslim Majority State of India, Jammu and Kashmir. She said, “Sir, the family I was born in and brought up by, does not have privilege to enjoy biryani. I never saw in my home how the dish is prepared. However I can narrate to you how to cook cereals (daal) and eat rice with….”
The lessons:
Khair was born in a Muslim family. Her name sounds her affinity to the Muslim community. Also she is not shy of her identity. She has always been a student of institutions run by another community. But none of her teachers demeaned her, nor did her classmates distance from her on account of her cast, creed, means of income and her short height (only 5 feet). She was awarded scholarships, provided education free, and given all help. When she was preparing for UPSC, the Zakat Foundation granted her opportunity to be benefitted from mock interview exercise.
And when a BBC correspondent asked her, “If you feel victim of Muslim Orthodox? Your parents were against taking higher education.” Her instant reply was: “No, this mindset is in all communities.” When another correspondent asked if she has some bitterness against her step-mother and father, she smiled and said, “I love them and I know they also love me. After all they are my parents. I am looking forward to go to meet them on the occasion of Eid in my village. I will certainly bring them to live with me in all comforts of parents of an IAS daughter deserve.” She added, “My father is a daily wager and brother sells bangles.”
She said, “I endure to work for deprived sections. Empowerment and turnaround in the life may be realised only with education.”
Let us send our good wishes to Ummul Khair and thank all those who helped her in any way.
[The writer is a Civil Rights activist, based in New Delhi, works as a Journalist. [email protected]]