Meet man who scored AIR 2 in GATE exam, was felicitated with prestigious award from president despite being blind, he is...

The inspiring stories of academic achievers encourage those who desire a good career to make a bold move, come out of their shells and make a mark for themselves. When young students achieve high scores in exams like UPSC, NEET, GATE and others, it sets an example for others to follow. Such is the inspiring story of GATE achiever Pratish Datta who despite being visually challenged managed to secure All India Rank 2 in GATE exam 2012 in Mathematics.  

He did not let the darkness of his eyes shadow his life and continued to study and make a career. Datta suffered from retinoschisis from the age of six months but lost his eyes completely during his graduation and since then started depending fully on his mother to help him study. His courage and determination in the face of such challenge earned him Professor Jagadish Chandra Bose Memorial Gold Medal for the best academic performance among the MSc batch of 2012 at IIT Kharagpur. He had completed MSc Mathematics from IIT.  

He also did PhD in cryptology and network technology at IIT. Talking about his inspiration in an old interview with ToI, he said, “My parents are my inspiration . They never made me feel that there was anything wrong. I received tremendous support from my teachers and buddies. My friend and classmate Fauzal Atik took great care of me at IIT.” 

He also told the news publication that when he was six months old, one of his eyes lost vision and the other one had poor vision. “My parents felt that if I studied a lot, the pressure would damage this eye too. So my mother would read all my lessons to me and I would memorize them.” He said that he even did Maths mentally as there was no other way of doing it but practice made him perfect. “Even Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler lost his vision in the last 17 years of his life. But he continued to do research. My mind is my eye now.”