The first doctor from tribal settlement Kannampadi in Idukki owes it to her parents

Idukki: Saranya who has become the first doctor from Kannampadi, a remote tribal settlement located inside Idukki Wildlife Sanctuary can't thank her parents enough for what they went through to give her a good education.
Her parents K N Mohanan and Minimol are farmers. Saranya studied at Government Medical College, Palakkad as part of the 2019-24 batch. When the results were announced, Saranya was at home. She was unable to log in due to low network connectivity. She got to know the results from the Whatsapp group of her batch. Mohanan and Minimol say that they haven't got over the feeling they experienced when she told them that she had passed the MBBS exam.

They had shelled out every piece of their earning, saved enough to fund her child's education. When Saranya started her studies at a nursery in Kannampadi, her teachers told them that she was good at her studies. From a house located on the forest fringe areas, they chose to shift to Swaraj near Kattapana to send her to an English Medium school. The school was 25 km away from Kannampadi which is located in Upputhara gram panchayat. Only two buses operated from their place.

They enrolled her in Zion English Medium School at Swaraj. Mohanan and Minimol shifted to a small house at Swaraj. Every day they would send her to school, then go to their farm at Kannampadi, work for the day and return to Swaraj by the time Saranya came home from school. She then completed her studies up to Plus Two at Navodaya Vidyalaya at Kulamavu.

Sharanya got 96 per cent marks in the SSLC examination and 90 per cent marks in Plus Two. In the medical entrance exam 2019, she achieved her dream by securing rank 23 in category A (ST) category. Then she got admission in Government Medical College, Palakkad. Saranya's house is located at a place called Punnaparakudy, 2 km further away from Kannampadi. The house and land are located on the border of the forest. Even while being happy about what she could accomplish, Saranya feels sad for other children in her village.

“Many of these children are not getting proper education. Some of my friends in my area do small jobs. I was able to achieve this feat because of my parents' efforts. I want to take post-graduation in General Medicine,” said Saranya. Mohanan who had started off with pepper farming has toiled hard to branch out to cardamom farming. Even when he dealt with setbacks in farming, he found a way to get her daughter educated and better the prospects of his family. “We are happy that her efforts have been rewarded. This was what we always wanted for her,” said Mohanan.