He hasn’t found a house that is willing to take him in as a tenant because he is blind.
The 11th grader at Padma Public Mukti Narayan Higher Secondary School spends his days searching for a room rather than studying after morning classes.[break]
“I have been looking for a room for the last four months,” rues BK. “The landlords say rooms are vacant when I send normal people in search. But the rooms become suddenly occupied when I approach them,” he says with a wry smile.
Most landlords fear that he may cause fire in the house while cooking food while others worry that they might be dragged into legal hassles if he died by tripping or any other reasons.
“I try to convince them that I passed SLC doing my daily chores like cooking and washing side by side but to no avail,” he reveals. “My parents agreed to let me live alone away from home because I can live on my own. But sadly they still refuse to rent me a room due to my blindness,” he complains.
He has been living temporarily in the guest house of Community Development Center in Silgadi for the last one month. “We have allowed him to stay here for free until he finds a room. We ourselves tried to find a room for him but no one has agreed to rent a room after knowing that he is blind,” says chief of the center Kriti Raj Panta.
He must attend every class because he doesn’t have Braille books. But if he doesn’t find a room in Silgadi, he will no longer be able to continue his education. “The requests to Doti Campus administration to provide me a room at the campus hostel and to the District Disabled Association were of no help either,” he says.
BK, who cannot afford to stay in a hotel due to poor financial condition of his family, is now mulling to quit study and return home.
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