New Delhi: Vinayak Sridhar, a Class X CBSE student, appeared for the 2019 board exams in acute conditions. Halfway through it, he died fighting acute muscular dystrophy.
But his quest for success in the face of odds has made him a hero among his peers. As per the board results announced on May 6, Vinayak scored a perfect 100 in English, 97 in Home Science and 96 in Sanskrit.
“He made us proud till the last moment. He would have scored equally well in the other two papers he never got a chance to sit for,” his mother Mamata told The Indian Express.
Vinayak, student of a Noida-based school, was diagnosed with muscular dystrophy at the age of 2 after he was unable to sit or stand without support. At the age of 7, he was bound to a wheelchair, and by the time he turned 13, he had to be fed by his parents.
“His classmates were most helpful. They would open his tiffin box, pour water in the bottle cap, as that’s all he could hold. A lot of them called us after they found out about his result,” said Mamatha from Rameshwaram in Tamil Nadu, where the couple went to honour their son’s post-exam holiday plans.
Topping the Class 10 board exams, becoming an astronaut and taking a trip to Rameswaram were among some of Vinayak’s unfulfilled wishes.
“He would always say I want to become an astronaut despite all the challenges and would say if Stephen Hawking could go to Oxford and make a name in Cosmology I can go to space too. He was confident that he would be among the top rankers. We were always amazed by his confidence and would encourage him further,” his mother further said.
On March 26, Vinayak suffered a cardiac arrest in the midst of board exams, leaving his friends and relatives in a state of shock.
His sister is an Indian Institute of Science (IISc) alumnus, currently pursuing her Phd from the University of British Columbia on a fellowship.
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