From one braveheart to another: Visually-challenged Nirmal Ghosh gives away an award to a physically-challenged student at The Telegraph School Awards for Excellence. Picture by Sanjoy Chattopadhyaya

The waiting room outside Dr Nirmal Ghosh’s small, one-room chamber in Nijbalia, Howrah, is never empty. It is teeming with people whom Ghosh calls his “eyes and arms”.

Doctor, social worker, researcher, Ghosh is the man to turn to for local residents suffering from anything — common cold to brain tumour.

And he achieved all this after losing his eyesight.

At the peak of his career as a sports medicine specialist, in a few tragic days in September 1996, Ghosh went from treating the nation’s finest sportsmen to not knowing what his next step was going to be. “I lost my eyesight because of an infection but I refused to be bogged down by it. I took it as a challenge, as I did every situation that tried to pull me down,” said Ghosh, days before The Telegraph School Awards for Excellence, where he presented the awards to Keshav Rathi’s family and the other stars in the Surrendra Paul Award for Courage category.

But his struggle started far before that when, at the age of 16, he travelled from Nijbalia to Calcutta to pursue a B.Sc. degree from Calcutta University. When he had to sleep on a footpath in Shibpur and study by streetlight for nine months, before he started teaching a student and landed a cooking job in a mess to ensure one free meal a day.

He also attended classes at Nilratan Sircar Medical College, where he could not take admission for lack of funds.

“But I knew I wanted to be a doctor since I was in Class IV. So, when I got the opportunity, I left my B.Sc. degree and went to study medicine at Ivory College (Nabadwip),” recalled Ghosh, sitting in the bedroom of his two-storey home.

Ghosh eventually went back to complete his B.Sc degree as well. But the avid learner did not stop there — he went on to specialise in sports medicine at Jadavpur University, which he practised for 14 years.

And then, there was darkness. With time, the road ahead became clearer than ever.

In four months, Ghosh registered his name at the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute in Darjeeling to train as a mountaineer, eventually becoming a trainer himself. In 1999, he opened a camp in Purulia where he taught physically-challenged children how to climb. In the same year, he led 46 of his best students to base camp of the Guan Nelda peak in Himachal Pradesh (19,000 ft), from where he led an expedition to the peak (20,680 ft) with four of them.

“I wanted to show people that with courage and determination, anything is possible. I scaled the peak with three others, all of whom had some form of physical disability and we came back without any mishap,” said Ghosh, whose dream of scaling Everest has remained unfulfilled.

He returned to Howrah in 2005 to look after his ailing mother and made it his home again. Ghosh soon began organising health camps in schools, and before he knew it, he had taken the first steps back towards medicine. Starting by helping suffering friends and acquaintances, he soon was attending the stream of patients who came to his home.

Over the years, his techniques have changed: he now uses conventional medicine, acupuncture and homoeopathy. Without eyesight, his hands are his key tool, and, as his patients will tell you, he can diagnose almost everything with a touch and careful consultation.

Ghosh’s only regret is that he is now unable to paint, a childhood passion. But don’t rule out anything just yet.