She would walk 7km everyday — from Ripon Street to Bowbazar and back — to attend school. On returning home, she would do all the household chores and then start giving private tuition to some children of her locality. When everything else was done, she would study.

Shalini Wrightman may not have been able to afford the bus fare to school, but she could afford a proud smile on Tuesday after aggregating 85 per cent in the ISC examination from Welland Gouldsmith School.

Her father died young and her mother, a diabetic, is unable to work. But staying in a tiny rented room in a building on Ripon Street, Shalini has shown what tenacity can achieve.

“My father died when I was only 10 years old. My mother had to depend on small contributions from well-wishers till I started earning some money,” she recalled.

Welland Gouldsmith, which she joined in Class VII, was her biggest support in the struggle to continue her education.

“Apart from free education, the school supplied me uniforms, blazers, books, pens, pencils and whatever I needed. I am indebted to my school, all my teachers and especially our principal, Gilian Rosemary Hart,” Shalini said.

Now that she is out of school, what next?

“I want to study either mass communication or communicative English,” she said.

Hart has promised to continue helping her; so have her teachers.

“She has never had a private tutor. Unlike her classmates, she could not buy a single reference book. But she was more sincere and attentive than many other students who came from privileged backgrounds,” one of her teachers said.