Mamita Bai has passed the Second Division Assistant (SDA) exam of the Karnataka Public Service Commission (KPSC) and is currently waiting for a posting.
That seems nothing extraordinary, but in the case of this 21-year-old, it is a feat. Mamita is 50 per cent blind and suffers from a condition that will eventually make her fully blind. Worse, she has received little support from her own parents because of her disability.
The 21-year-old from Bikkunayaka Tanda in Chincholi taluk, Kalaburagi district, shudders as she recounts her experiences. “My parents saw me as a burden and were only worried that they may not be able to get me married because of my disability,” she says.
After completing her primary education in her native village, she joined the government high school at Chiduguppa village in Humnabad taluk, Bidar district, and began to stay with her maternal uncle, taking a part-time job. “At this point my parents even tried to make a false projection that my uncle had an affair with me so that he would be forced to get married to me,” she says.
She moved from Chiduguppa to Yadgir to avoid all contact with family, but the family and relatives compelled her back to return and ‘kept her captive’. She managed to get away in May 2015, on the pretext of writing BA II semester examinations in Chiduguppa and never went back.
Eshwharamma, a social activist associated with Janvadi Mahila Sanghatane, got her admitted to Bless Society, a charitable home for the blind, and she also took a part-time job. Mamita wrote her KPSC exam and cleared it during this time.
This was, however, not the end of her troubles. The letter from KPSC asking her to appear for document verification came to her home address in June, 2016, but her parents did not inform her. She came to know about it through her friend only in December.
With the help of Lakshmi Bavge, a social activist, she approached KPSC. After running from pillar to post, the then KPSC Secretary Subodh Yadav intervened, making it possible to complete the verification of documents recently. Now, the young woman is looking forward to her posting.
Mamita currently has 50% visual impairment and doctors say vision loss would eventually be total. “But I am confident of facing the future,” she says.
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