Women’s Day: This single mother is all the vision her visually impaired kids need

Mamta Saun, a single mother, educated herself to part ways with her husband; and has also educated her visually impaired kids. One of her children is preparing for IAS now.

Behind every successful man, there is a woman, and behind a successful child, there is a mother. Mamta Saun is an embodiment of this. As if a single mother doesn’t have enough challenges, Mamta has surmounted every obstacle and challenge to be the eyes for her two kids Kunal (18) and Sakshi (24), who are visually impaired.

Mamta Saun, 42-year-old single mother, is an inspiration for many who have differently abled kids.

Mamta got married at the age of 18 and had her first child in the next 10 months. However, she has no sweet memories of being a new bride or mom. “My husband and mother-in-law would torture me,” she says.

“When my daughter was born, their attitude became more abusive. I even contracted TB,” says Mamta, a resident of Rohini. She was at her maternal home when her grandmother told her that her six-month-old girl was visually impaired. She says,“I cried for days. And I decided I won’t go back to my husband’s home. I enrolled myself in a school again.”

With a daughter to take care of, she still cleared her Class XII with flying colours. But she knew she needed to be educated further to give herself and her daughter a respectable life. She completed graduation, and was “advised by family to go back to” her husband. “I shifted back. My husband was earning well and I thought maybe he has changed. But he hadn’t. Meanwhile, I gave birth to a boy who too was visually challenged. My resolve became stronger. I started pursuing MA. He didn’t like it. One day, he took out a knife to harm me,” she says.

She knew a job was her only liberation. So, she got an MBA. “I finally got a job that was paying more than ₹50,000. In 2011, I divorced my husband,” she says. She has left no stone unturned to give her kids a good education though money always remained a challenge. “Normal public schools lacked the infrastructure to support blind kids. Some refused admission. But I knew I had to get them a good education that would be their passport to a decent life,” she says.

Sakshi, after completing her History (Hons) from Delhi University’s Hindu College, is preparing for IAS and Kunal is in Class XII. “I don’t have enough money to support my daughter’s education but whatever I have, I am helping her with that. She is preparing through audio classes, since the study material is expensive. My son is doing well,” says Saun.

And she adds: “You know, earlier I used to cry a lot. Then, one day my daughter said, ‘main mann ki ankho se dekh sakti hun’, I knew I was raising the kids well, and I stopped crying.”

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