MUMBAI: Jogeshwari resident Raushan Jawwad’s story will have a happy ending, after all. Despite having being dealt a blow by fate and the country’s obdurate bureaucracy, the 23-year-old girl — whose father is a pushcart vegetable vendor in the western suburbs — secured a first class in her final MBBS examination eight years after losing both her legs in a train accident at Jogeshwari in 2008.
The handicap was not the only roadblock in her path; the bureaucracy had tried its best to stymie her dreams of becoming a doctor. There is a rule that allows only people with “up to 70% handicap” to study medicine but the girl was found to be 88% handicapped post-accident, so she had to move the Bombay high court in order to be able to study medicine despite qualifying in the entrance exam, as the government found her “unfit” to study medicine.