Spirit surmounts physical limitations

K Radhabai has never let visual impairment affect her progress in life

In most of her speeches, K Radhabai, distinguished for becoming South India’s first visually impaired PhD scholar in 1991, makes sure to mention that she is from Usilampatti in Madurai district, a place infamous for its high rate of female infanticide. “I remember my mother getting shocked to hear that the milkman and his wife had killed their newborn baby with kallipaal [the poisonous sap of cleistanthus collinus] because they didn’t want a daughter. In contrast, my parents never took my gender or my visual impairment due to retinitis pigmentosa as a challenge, and supported me right from the beginning,” the retired academic tells MetroPlus while on a recent visit to Tiruchi.