BIBI MOHAMMADI

How we long for the perfect life. We chase comforts, materialistic pleasures
and happiness with the singular hope that it will help us feel fulfilled.
Adversity can bring all us this but it requires imagination, courage and
patience.
Bibi Mohammadi was struck by polio in her childhood and lost the use of her
legs. The only way to move was to crawl. But even then, she didnt stay back
at home; she wore her slippers in her hands and dragged herself across dirty
tracks in Nathnagar in Bhagalpur, Bihar, to go to school.
Everyone shunned and mocked her, but she would not let her physical
disability affect her resolve. She had two pillars to lean on: a teacher and a
friend in her class. Both of them encouraged her, telling her that she could
win over her handicap.
Nathnagar was a predominantly poor Muslim town of weavers and education
was completely ignored. She worked hard and studied late into the night. So
when she passed the intermediate level exam, while six of her brothers and
sisters failed, people in Nathnagar noticed.
But there was another problem there was no money for Mohammadi to
continue her education. So she started giving tuitions to students to fund her
education. That, she believes, was an opportunity. It made my life worthy
and meaningful, to myself and others, she says.
Today, for a paltry sum of Rs10 per month, she teaches over 350 students in
an informal school called Mohammadia Arabia in Nathnagar before they enter
formal schools. Further away are three government run schools with six
teachers, but these schools hardly have any students.
Mohammadi has been running her school for 20 years, and though there is
little financial help, she is not discouraged. She has faith in her work, which is
now changing the way her townsfolk view education.
Bibis dreams have brought her this far. She is now aiming for a large
institution that will have the space and the wherewithal to take in hundreds of
poor children and instill in them a confidence to take on the world. Just the
way she has.
She could easily be called the Helen Keller of our times. The darkness that
surrounds her life has not prevented Bibi Mohammadi from spreading the
light of education. At 26, and with more than 80 per cent physical disability,
she teaches more than 300 students at her school in Nathnagar, Bhagalpur.
Bibi, whose lower limbs are palsy-struck because of a polio attack that she
suffered as a child, says: "Teaching children has made my life meaningful and

worthy."
An invalid child of a poor weaver family, Bibi managed to clear her
intermediate examination-an achievement, considering that her six other
normal siblings failed on that count. But her achievement has not been able
to exorcise her of her nightmarish childhood memories. When other children
jumped and ran about she simply watched them. "Sometimes I tried to
imitate them but I fell down," she recalls. At school too she was a laughing
stock. "Nobody helped me with my studies and I had to give tuitions to pay
my school fees," Bibi says, a little bitter with the way life treated her at that
stage. Her childhood friend Kushari was perhaps the sole exception. She not
only encouraged her to study but also lent her books to Bibi. "Some of my
teachers helped me with mathematics and English and I taught their children
Arabic and Urdu in return."
In fact, this was the time-while she was still studying-that she decided to start
a school of her own. That was in 1983. Initially, there were around 50
students. Now she teaches over 300 children in three shifts. Students from
other schools come to her to learn Arabic and Urdu. At her school,
Mohammadia Arabia (named after her), Arabic, Urdu, Hindi, English and
Mathematics are taught.
Keeping in view the poor economic condition of her locality-dominated by
weavers-she charges a token fees of only Rs 10 from each student. Amid all
this, however, she still continues with her own studies.
Interestingly, she is the lone teacher and manages all the classes singlehandedly. With slippers in her hands, she crawls from one corner to the other
of the dingy, thatched-roof classroom. "I had to crawl this way to school as I
was not in a position to afford a rickshaw," she explains. What kept her going
were words of inspiration from Qari Saheb, Imam of the Nathnagar mosque.
He told her to continue with her education so that by teaching children she
could become financially independent and not feel handicapped. And he has
been proved right. Bibi's school has lit up not only the lives of illiterate
children who can now, thanks to her, appreciate knowledge's worth, but has
also made her seemingly dark existence bright and sunny.
She is so involved with her school now that Bibi does not even have the time
to think about her own life. "I have given up even thinking about marriage
now," says the unrelenting crusader who seems to be wedded to her cause.
She has been felicitated for her courage by local organisations like Safari
Yuva Club and Social Justice Foundation in 1996 and 1997 respectively.
Faroque Ali, a professor with the TNB College in Bhagalpur, often provides her
with reading material. He regrets that the government has not done its
promised bit for handicapped people like Bibi.

This explains Bibi's moments of dejection. "I will close down the school, then
people will know my worth," she bursts out when questioned about the
community's support.
However, she manages to tide over such states of her mind and dares to
dream. She plans to shape her school in accordance with the curriculum of
modern education. For this, she expects good samaritans to join her crusade.