Tag Archives: Dr. Roshan Jahan Shaikh

On Women’s Day, a lesson on courage and defiance

Mumbai, MAHARASHTRA :

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Urdu medium Bombay Girls High School on Mohammed Ali Road celebrated womanhood with inspiring stories of women who succeeded against all odds.

They come to their school on Mohammed Ali Road early in the morning from the slums of Wadala and Sewri, and when they return home, some of them must help in household chores like washing the clothes and cooking, before they can finally sit down to study. Sometimes, they have to skip school in order to look after their younger siblings. Playtime is an unknown concept.

Some of them even admitted to not opening their books at all at home. We don’t feel like it, they said. And nobody at home cares enough to try and persuade them. On the contrary, there are some who will have to persuade their parents to allow them to continue studying till Class XII.

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Yet, their aspirations know no bounds. From teaching to fashion designing to becoming a doctor – these are their dreams.

On this International Women’s Day, their hopes got a huge boost when they got to hear the success story of someone just like them at a program at their 50-year-old Urdu medium Bombay Girls High School. They learnt that giving up was not an option from one of their own.

Dr Roshan Jahan, daughter of a vegetable vendor, lost both her legs in a train accident when she was in Std XI. Debarred from getting into a medical college because she was 86 per cent disabled, she approached the Bombay High Court, fought a long-winded legal battle and won the right to study medicine in 2011. Last year, she completed her MBBS with a first class from the renowned GS Medical College attached to KEM hospital.

The young doctor was the special guest at the function.

“Never give up on education,” she told the wide-eyed students, recounting her struggle. “Education alone will make you self-sufficient and take the community forward. Instead of wallowing in selfpity about discrimination, resolve to reach a position in society where no one can discriminate against you.”

The Women’s Day program was organised by Reshma Momin, a former journalist, who now runs the Quresh Nagar Women’s Welfare Society. She too had been a shy, self-effacing teenager, she told the students, but her father had taught her to aim high.

“Never feel you are any less than others just because you are poor and study in an Urdumedium school.”

Earlier, special invitee Dr Indrani Salunkhe gave a talk on menstruation and overcoming the problems that accompanied it. She also spoke to the Class VII- IX girls about the adverse link between menstruation and junk food.

source: http://www.mumbaimirror.indiatimes.com / Mumbai Mirror / Home> Mumbai> Others / by Jyoti Punwani, Mumbai Mirror / March 09th, 2018

She lost her legs but pursued her dreams

Mumbai, MAHARASHTRA :

Ex Mayor Tahera Rasheed felicitating Roshan Jahan as her mother Ansara Khatoon, ASP Sunil Khadasne (second from right) and MLA Asif Shaikh (supplied photo)
Ex Mayor Tahera Rasheed felicitating Roshan Jahan as her mother Ansara Khatoon, ASP Sunil Khadasne (second from right) and MLA Asif Shaikh (supplied photo)

Fighting all odds and overcoming physical and language barrier, she cracked MBBS exams and is now preparing for post-graduate entrance.

Having lost both legs in a train accident, facing acute poverty, and belonging to a conservative Muslim family. She would not have needed any other excuse to give up in life.

Yet, fighting all odds and overcoming physical and language barrier, she cracked MBBS exams and is now preparing for post-graduate entrance.

The inspiring story of Roshan Jahan, the 23-year-old Muslim girl from Mumbai who hit the headlines after passing this year’s MBBS finals, went viral on print and electronic media, Internet and social networking sites, with each minute detail, except for one thing that she also has a golden voice.

Roshan Jahan left hundreds of students who had gathered at Zaini Basheer Hall in Malegaon to hear her story, mesmerised, and teary-eyed, by reciting tunefully a poem written and composed by her.

The poem was dedicated to her mother, who Roshan said, deserved, after Allah the Almighty, all credit for her extraordinary success.

“It is because of my mother, after Allah, the Almighty and the most Merciful, that I am standing here in front of you as a role model,” she said amid applause from hundreds of students.

She said after losing her both legs in the train accident, there were times, when she would feel completely hopeless. But, it was her mother, she said, who lifted her spirits up and gave her hope in her darkest hours.

“After I survived the train accident, my mother would say think…why Allah gifted you a ‘second life’. It must be for something really big,” she recalled.

Roshan Jahan’s legs had to be amputated after she fell off a local train in October 2008 while travelling from Andheri to Jogeshwari. She has been using prosthetic legs since April 2009. She was returning home after writing her college exam papers at Anjuman-i-Islam Girl’s college, Bandra, when she lost her balance and fell onto the tracks and her legs came under the moving train.

Recounting her ordeal, she said, “Orthopedic surgeon Dr Sanjay Kantharia who operated on me took care of me like I was his daughter. Even after the accident in 2008, I did not drop out and studied at home and appeared for exams.

“I cleared the state’s medical entrance exam, MHCET, and was later asked to go for a medical test for the handicapped at JJ Hospital. The doctors there said that as per the rules, only students who had between 40% to 70% disability could be given admission in the MBBS course. I was denied admission as I had 88% disability.”

She said Kantharia then suggested she move court.

“We met senior lawyer V P Patil, who took up my case for free. During the hearing I would go to the court with my relatives. Justice Shah, after hearing my petition and seeing me visiting the court, directed the college authorities to admit me,” Roshan said.

source: http://www.khaleejtimes.com / Khaleej Times / Home> Specials> Happiness Times / by Ummid.com / April 14th, 2016