The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Then injured, now pleased

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Wednesday, May 28, 2008
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Then injured, now pleased

Meera Srinivasan

PHOTO: R.RAGU

WINNING DUO: J. Shalini and Surya Chandran at Shalini’s house in Chennai on Tuesday. —

CHENNAI: J. Shalini still remembers how painful her Class X Tamil paper was. Not because she found it difficult, but because she wrote it after an accident that left her knee seriously injured. But today, her mighty 90 in the subject brings a bright smile to her face.

Shalini was riding pillion with her father B. Jeevaraj and fell off the two-wheeler after it rammed into a median near Egmore on March 5. However, she was determined to take her Tamil paper the very same day. Asan Memorial, the school she goes to, and the CBSE made special arrangements for her to take the paper in her own school, with a help her junior A.I. Nigazh, who stepped in as scribe. “I tried writing...but after one page, my hands started hurting very much. Nigazh wrote very well, according to my pace,” she says.

Still undergoing physiotherapy, Shalini says she hopes to recover soon. With an aggregate of 83 per cent, she feels she could have scored much higher if she had not met with the accident. “My aim was to score 98 in Tamil, my favourite subject,” she says.

In fact, in most of her post-accident subjects, Shalini has a very good score. Despite having been largely bed-ridden during the period, he has scored an impressive 93 in mathematics, too. “My friend Surya Chandran helped me a lot. I couldn’t practise problems. So she would come home, explain concepts and take me through different steps,” she recalls.

And on Tuesday, Surya rushed to her dear friend’s house to share the joy, even before she found out what her own result was. Later, Surya and Shalini, together celebrated their over-eighty aggregates, for they knew that their scores were much beyond than a mere indication of academic performance. Both have opted for the computer science stream and will therefore, continue being classmates.

For Shalini’s parents, it was a proud moment. Mr. Jeevaraj, who is still recovering from his injury, says he was amazed to know she was writing her examination that very day. Her principal Suma Padmanaban is also very happy.

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