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"I was running after a kite. I accidentally
touched a live electric wire with both my
hands. That was it," he says with a shrug of
his shoulders.
Though he lived with his parents when
tragedy struck, he doesn't say how he ended
up on umbai's streets, addicted to
cigarettes, for which he begged at the city's
famed Chhatrapati hivaji Terminus, home to
scores of abandoned street children.
But then ajesh, who was born uly 26,
2,
remembers what he describes as his rebirth,
which happened sometime in
. e
eagerly narrates that story.
`ujata anega, one of the founder trustees of
T, who ajesh today fondly calls
'mummy', saw the limbless 7-year-old
smoking a cigarette, holding it in his leg. he
immediately wondered If this boy can smoke
with his leg, he can surely write using the
same technique.
ajesh, who has no hands, had written all his
papers algebra, geometry, science and
technology, nglish, indi, arathi, history and
geography by holding pen, pencil, and the
geometric compass by the toes of his left leg.
e secured 7
in lus 2 exams.
It took almost three years of dogged perseverance before
ajesh could write legibly. The real fun, he says, was
learning to draw geometrical sketches using a compass.
ne day, when he was in Class 6, ajesh saw andeep
Kashyap, a teacher at
T, use a compass to draw
geometrical figures for his pupils. That set the ball rolling.
e plans to become a psychologist some day.
"When I was a kid I wanted to become a
'scientist'," he says. " ctually I wanted to
become a psychologist but thought that those
who read and analysed people's behavior
were called scientists.