Ace swimmer, writer, & now university topper, Payal’s blind status only pushes her more

23-year-old Payal Bhattad has shown that even the sky is not the limit for a person with disability. This blind student at the University of Mumbai has topped the Masters in Arts, MA in History for 2017.

Priya is from Deoli, a small village in Vidarbha. She has scored an overall 78% in her final MA exams, and has topped a batch of over 90 students at the university. University officials say that she is likely to be the first student from any university department to achieve this.

A topper all the way

Payal says that she was confident of getting a very good score in the exams and always hoped to top. She is now doing a Bachelors in Education at the Xaviers Institute of Education in Churchgate as she wants to teach.

Payal, who has been blind from birth, did her early schooling from Amravati and came to Mumbai after Class 10. She did her Bachelors in History from Wilson College and topped the college at the final exams with 84%. She

She is not just good at academics. She is a national level swimmer, a good writer and a poet, and has always been an all-rounder with several achievements to her credit.

Hard work & patience key to Payal’s success

However, all this has not come easy. She finds it hard to study with audio notes and the learning process involves many stages. She has to download PDF copies of reference books, read them with a screen reader, type it in on computer and then put it in braille for reference. It was after doing all this, that she prepares for exams.

Payal says she has never let impairment come in the way of her learning and has never expected any favours from anyone because she is blind.

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