Lucknow’s Child Prodigy Sushma Verma Beats Odds To Soar Higher
Lucknow-based Sushma Verma has been hitting the headlines for quite a few years now.
She first shot into the spotlight in 2007 when she broke all past records to become the youngest matriculate in the country.
At seven, she made it to the Limca Book of Records. Sushma had beaten none other than her own brother Shailendra, who had passed the Uttar Pradesh High School examination at the age of nine.
Daughter of a daily wage laborer and an illiterate mother, her genius was discovered at the age of two and she was just five when she was directly enrolled in class IX in 2005. When she was seven, she got listed in the Limca Book of Records for being the ‘youngest student’ to pass class X. She was 13 when she completed her graduation and at the age of 15, she has created yet another record by finishing her M.Sc. And that too with a Semester Grade Point Average (SGPAs) of 8!
Realizing Sushma’s poor financial health, Sulabh’s chief Dr. Bindeshwari Pathak announced a grant of Rs 8,00,000 towards higher education of the child prodigy.
Interestingly Sushma hails from a family of illiterates; her parents find it difficult to even make two ends meet.
“Sushma’s mother never went to school, but I have cleared Class VIII”, asserts her father Tej Bahadur who is a class IV employee at St Meera’s Inter College in Lucknow’s Alambagh area, the same institute where Sushma completed her class 12.
Although she lives in a single-room tenement, she’s least daunted by her financial or social odds.
“We don’t have a television at home. My only pastime is to play with my two-year-old sister Ananya,” she says.
Ever since she grew confident in charting her own career, she wanted to pursue medicine. “I always dreamed of becoming a doctor,” she says.
At the age of 10 after completing her class 12, she took the Combined Pre-Medical Test for admission to the MBBS course, but her result was withheld because the authorities found her to be underage.
That’s how she came about choosing Microbiology for her undergraduate.
She doesn’t hide her disappointment when asked about her medical dreams. “Let them not grant me admission to MBBS if I am underage, but if they could let me know whether I touched the qualifying level or not; because that would give me an idea as to where I stand in terms of fulfilling my dream to become a doctor”, pleads the 13-year old in an interview.
Her brilliance does not just shine in India. She was invited for an IQ test in Japan where she competed with 35 other students of her age and stood first.
Clearing the course with flying colours with a grade point average of 8, the daughter of a sanitation worker never looked back. In 2007, she entered the Limca Book of Records as the youngest student to clear class X exams. Even her elder brother Shailendra completed his graduation in Computer science at the age of 14 and cleared matriculation when he was nine.
At a time when the country talks in terms of Beti Bachao Beti Padhao, this girl in UP’s capital Lucknow is a perfect example of how if given a chance to spread their wings and fly, girls in today’s day and age are second to none.
India has often been prey to medieval mindsets where girls are discouraged from going to school and getting educated. Women in some parts of the country are still seen as typical homemakers who are supposed to stay at home, do household chores, take care of family, and serve instead. But like Bob Dylan once famously sang – Times they are changing.
