Aamir Khan’s first film as director, Taare Zameen Par, stood out for two things. First, it made people aware of a disease such as Dyslexia. But more importantly, it made people sensitive towards children who may need special attention due to rare medical conditions. In the film, no one is aware of what Ishaan Awasthi was going through. The kid was talented, but was considered lazy and stupid. In the real world, Paridhi Varma, too, faced a somewhat similar situation. And not only did she overcome it, but went on to be the youngest student at IIM Lucknow. Paridhi’s illness was different and she was lucky to have understanding parents. She suffers from age-related macular degeneration. It is a rare disease that occurs in one in a million children in which eye vision is increasingly lost progressively with age. Since birth, she suffered but it only came to light when a bright student like her suddenly began faltering in studies. As usual, her parents thought that she was losing interest in studies. However, Paridhi wasn’t able to see what was being written on the blackboard by the teacher.
“By the time a student would write a paragraph, I would just finish a line. I couldn’t explain to my parents as I was too young to understand what was happening with me,” she says. When the problem persisted, they took her to an eye specialist, but she was only prescribed glasses. However, she didn’t wear them for too long. “It wasn’t helpful, and glasses were not in vogue at the time, so children teased me a lot,” she says. But matters became worse, and she even used a magnifying glass to read. It is then her parents took her to Delhi where doctors advised them to go to L.V. Prasad Eye Institute in Hyderabad. It is there they came to know about the rare disease their daughter was suffering from. Any normal parents would have been crestfallen after hearing that their only child would lose the ability to see in time, but it made Satyendra and Krishna Prabha Varma, who worked in a government ordinance factory more resolute to raise her as a normal child. “The teachers at the central school advised us to send her to a blind school. She even failed there. For some time, we sent her to National Institute for Visually Handicapped, but I knew that if she remained there for too long she would not be able to live a normal life, which we wanted her to live. So we never allowed her to feel that she was different. We gave her the confidence and we put her into normal school,” says Varma.
He met teachers, requesting them to speak loudly what they were writing so that his daughter could understand. But, not everyone was sensitive. “It wasn’t their fault. How would they understand that a person who is otherwise performing all other tasks normally and even playing football had such a disease,” Paridhi says. But, there were other practical problems. Leaving such a child alone was a tough decision for the working parents. Her mother would prepare everything and keep them at a pre-designated place so that she could easily pick them up when she came from school. Initially, an attendant was hired but removed when Paridhi herself insisted to live independently.
After a few years of struggle, things changed when she got a scribe to write exams for her in class IX. Her marks improved and since then there was no looking back. This made her father realise that she had a sharp memory and whatever was being read to her she didn’t forget. “She would often correct me and tell about where a particular word would be found in a chapter and on which page,” her father says. “When we lose something physically, we tend to rely more on other senses,” Paridhi says. When her parents shifted to Jaipur after retirement, she went to Subodh Public School. Though she wanted to study science, her disability didn’t permit her, so she took commerce instead. She then graduated in business administration from ICG College in Jaipur and also got a diploma in mass communication and video production. Today, this girl with 90 per cent visually impairment became the youngest student in the history of IIM Lucknow, at the age of 19 years, three years ago. She has now been selected by Jan Lakshmi Bank, as a customer relation executive during the campus recruitment.
She never let her disabilities deter her personal growth. She was a part of the team that won the under-18 state-level football championship in her Class 10. In college, she learned how to play the guitar and formed her own college band that later even gave concerts. Paridhi has also received many awards, recognising her perseverance, determination, and resolve. In her final year of college, she was felicitated with the ‘Woman of the Future Award’ in 2015 by the government of Rajasthan. Her parents have also received another award by the Nobel laureate Kailash Satyarthi on her behalf on Daughter’s Day. But, she is not done yet. “I want to become an IAS officer. I would be more comfortable in a government job, as that is where a person like me can find proper facility, care and work environment,” she says. Her story reminds us of the renowned Hindi poet Dushyant Kumar. “Kaun kahta hai aasman mai surakh nahi ho sakta, ek patthar toh tabiyat se uchalo yaro (Who says the sky is impenetrable, Try throwing a stone at it with conviction).”
