Parvati AS and Lakshmi AS CET. are graduates of
Parvati AS and Lakshmi AS CET. are graduates of
The old adage ‘Where there is a will, there is a way’ holds true for brothers and sisters Parvati AS and Lakshmi AS, who have overcome immense obstacles in their lives.
Congenital hearing impaired twins, both of whom are graduates from the College of Engineering Thiruvananthapuram (CET), have crossed another hurdle to move forward towards their ambition. Both cleared the Engineering Services Examination 2021 conducted by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) by securing ranks 74th and 75th in the civil engineering category.
This achievement has taken him a step closer towards his dream posting in the Indian Defense Service of Engineers (IDSE). Ms. Lakshmi is working as an Assistant Engineer in the Irrigation Department, while Ms. Parvati is awaiting appointment as a Junior Engineer in the Central Public Works Department through the Staff Selection Commission.
It was an easy ride for neither the twins nor their family, who hail from Thirumala in the city. When his father passed away when he was just two years old, his mother, Sita, who has a partial hearing impairment, took the initiative to raise her three hearing-impaired children. The eldest of the three, Vishnu, another CET alumnus, is an assistant engineer in the Public Works Department (PWD).
Ms Sita, who is currently superintendent in the PWD, enrolled her twin daughters at the National Institute of Speech and Hearing (NISH) here when they were one and a half years old. After receiving training for about four years, when they were trained in speech therapy to read and speak lip movements, the girls were brought into the mainstream after the age of five and entered a school in Thirumala. Haven’t looked back since then.
Ms. Parvati and Ms. Lakshmi had made headlines in 2015 when they scored 1,187 and 1,185 respectively out of 1,200 in the Plus Two examinations, leading to a surprise inspection by the then District Collector Biju Prabhakar. While both completed their BTech in Civil Engineering at CET in 2019, Ms Lakshmi did her MTech in Geotechnical Engineering in the same college.
An excited PK Jayashree, one of his teachers in CET, attributed his success only to focus and hard work. “Sisters used to sit in the front row and read the lips of their teachers inexorably to understand concepts and take notes. His feat is exemplary for the youth,” she says.
Higher Education Minister R. Bindu, who congratulated the twins, said that they can achieve such a height without the help of cochlear implants and other digital aids.