Blind but not helpless: Meet Poonam Pol, who scored 85%

Poonam Pol, is a blind student of Saraswati High School at Naigaon (Dadar), cleared her Secondary School Certificate (SSC) board examinations successfully. She scored 85%.

Pol, whose father is a tempo driver, is a resident of Kurla. She lives with her parents and an older brother Tushar. Pol was a student of Kamla Mehta Blind School at Dadar until Standard 7. For further education, she got admission in Saraswati High School which caters to special students like her. For board examinations, the school provided its blind students with writers.

But when Pol went to the exam centre with her writer, she was allowed to use her writer only for a day. The exam centre changed her writer and provided her with a new writer who was from the school which housed the exam centre. She said, "When my writer was changed in the second exam, I was a bit disturbed. I had developed a rapport with my initial writer. But I managed well later."

Pol said, "My father was waiting to see whether I score better than my brother. My brother (who is not blind) scored 82% in the SSC two years ago. And I won the race. He scored 75% this year in his HSC, and I am happy for him. There will be celebrations at home for both of us. I wish to pursue Commerce from St. Xavier's college at CST."

Pol feels that the state board should start providing the question paper in Braille for the students who are blind. "It would be better if the board provides question papers in Braille to the blind students, as it is tough to manage during the English Language exam. The writer had to read the unseen passage a number of times before we could grasp it."