He may need a helper to move his wheelchair. He may need someone to feed him. He may even need someone to get basic functions out of the way. But when it comes to getting into a Post Doctoral course, all he needed was his mother’s wish to see her 95 per cent disabled son get a degree. “When I considered pursuing research, everyone at home was very happy, especially my mother. She passed away just as I started my PhD, but I was determined to live her dream,” says 32-year-old Dr Akshansh Gupta. And he meant every word of that! Not only did he complete his PhD, he is probably one of the first differently-abled persons to ace his post doc.
Life on the JNU campus was never easy, despite it being one of most accomodating colleges in the country. “Although JNU is the most differently-abled friendly educational institutes, there are a lot of hurdles for differently-abled students to access common areas,” he says. Clearly, he wasn’t the kind to let these hurdles get in the way. So even with nonfunctional lower limbs, stiff hands and speech that was almost impossible to decipher, he completed his thesis on ‘Brain Computer Interface’. And that’s why he received a special mention at the convocation, where they applauded his will. “It was an emotional moment, because, for me it was very hard to even imagine finishing fifth grade,” he recalls.
Growing up, all he kept hearing were things like ‘What benefit will school bring you?’, ‘You should sit at home and relax’. Thanks to his mother’s support, he managed to shrug it off, pull himself together everyday and sit through his classes at school. “Some teachers were indifferent while others were supportive. Students used to make fun of me because I was not able to sit properly in the class,” he recalls. But life was a weird way of evening things out, as he came to realise, “Things changed the day I answered a teacher’s question in class when nobody expected me to. Nobody teased me after that day,” he says.
His magic worked on the JNU campus as well. Popular to a fault and an inspiration to many, other scholars used to call him Bunty Dada. “His life in itself is an inspiration. He is the most intelligent person I know and his determination is unparalleled. Whenever we get into a fix, we think about him and somehow we manage to gather energy to pursue our goals,” says Ranjeet K Rajan, PhD scholar at JNU.
Dr Akshansh Gupta has ample reason to be proud. But he’s not someone who’s sitting on his laurels. He wants to pay it forward in future, “I would like to start an NGO for the differently-abled and poor children to help them complete their education,” he says. He had the same message for everyone else. “I would like to convey to all students that if you have strong willpower then there is no hurdle that can stop you from achieving your dream,” he signs off.
Reach Out: akshanshgupta83@gmail.com