Visually impaired girl to go for her dream course at DU

Life will no longer be a blind alley for Sana Samad, one of the two visually impaired students from the city, who opted to study Maths in class 12 despite opposition and has secured admission to a prestigious Delhi University college.

Sana, 18, who proved her detractors wrong by scoring 93 per cent in Maths, is elated about getting admission in Shri Ram College of Commerce — where she will study the subject.

The odds were stacked against both Sana and her visually impaired batchmate-friend, Karthik Sawhney, when they decided to pursue the less-trodden path by opting for Maths at the CBSE board.

Sawhney, after a long fight with IIT-Delhi, has been accepted at the renowned Stanford University, while Sana is happy at being accepted at SRCC, where she will pursue Commerce.

The challenge to study Maths, for both Sana and Karthik, was stupendous, in the absence of any study material in Braille.

Sana perhaps encountered more problems than Karthik. Bluebells School, where she was enrolled, had a new Maths teacher for class 12 and her grades fell. She was advised to study music instead.

But Sana did not budge.

Her mother Dr Pakiza Samad, who teaches Commerce at a Delhi University college, recalls, “I would spend a couple of hours each day and help Sana with (audio) recordings. I would record Math problems and possible solutions and then Sana would work on it.”

At school too, help from classmates was difficult to come by. “Sometimes I would ask what was written on the blackboard and I would get no answers or told they (classmates) were busy,” Sana says with a grin. The challenge was obviously immense, but it was Sana’s hard work that eventually paid off.

“Apart from SRCC, I also got accepted for business management sudies,” she says cheerfully.