Ummul Kher, suffering from the fragile bone disorder who got disowned by her parents due to their apathy towards educating a girl child beyond primary school. She has crossed various hurdles of facing 16 fractures and 8 surgeries, completing High school studies by dwelling in a slum, clearing XII board exams, bagging scholarships, obtain Junior Research Fellowship (JRF) and reaching the pinnacle of achievement by cracking UPSC Competitive Exams with a 420 rank. In this process of reaching the height of accomplishment, she got disowned by her parents, led a penury life at a slum, and delivered marathon hours of tuitions to slum dwellers’ kids, faced the trauma of surgery and fractures.
Ummul Kher’s family migrated from Rajasthan to Delhi while she was in 5th grade and her father, a street vendor by profession had no forethought of educating the children further. Her stubborn attitude to continue education despite hardship at home resulted in her parents disowning her. For the cause of studies, she started living in a slum at Jhuggi Jhopri (JJ) Cluster, Trilokpuri locality. Her Initial education was at Pandit Deendayal Upadhyay Institute for Physically Handicapped up till 5th grade. Once she was disowned by her parents she joined Amar Jyothi CharitableTrustt until 8th grade.
Ummer quotes—“My lonely stay at Jhuggi (hut) to complete High school was more challenging than cracking UPSC exams. I had to take tuitions for meagre fees of 50-100 INR from slum dwelling kids and tuition batches used to run for marathon hours, starting from 3 P.M to 11 P.M in form of 5 batches to support myself.”Once Ummer completed 8th grade, Amar Jyothi trust funded for her further education through scholarships for next 5 years. In Grade 12, she came up with a stupendous 91% score and secured seat at Gargi College for graduation. She continued her tuition spree to support educational expenses. Unfortunately during her under graduation studies she met with an accident and was made to move with a wheel chair.
On successful graduation she obtained admission to prestigious Jawharlal Nehru University (JNU) with cent percent scholarship. Most admirable achievement is that she cracked fellowship exam to bag 25000 INR Junior Research Fellowship (JRF). This became a stepping stone to accomplish her dream of cracking UPSC exams and come up with 420th Rank.