(Top) Akash Chakraborty with his parents at home; Sohini Sarkar receives her certificate from Jeyapriya Gopal on Saturday. (Anindya Shankar Ray)

The trial for the Chakrabortys began when their son Akash was six months old. He was diagnosed with cerebral palsy. His parents were told that he might never be able to speak or walk. They wouldn’t give up. Today the 12-year-old Akash, a resident of Baguiati, is clearing exams from a mainstream school with flying colours, though at times he has to write from bed.

Sohini Sarkar, 15, of Salt Lake was diagnosed with cancer in an advanced stage in 2008. After a year the doctors told her parents to take her back home and see that her last days were spent well. Her parents refused to accept this as the end. Sohini now is attending school in between check-ups and looking forward to the day she can resume her dance classes.

Two extraordinary children and their extraordinary parents were honoured at The Telegraph School Awards for Excellence. Akash and Sohini received The Surrendra Paul Memorial Award for Courage. Their parents, Asish and Bahni Chakraborty, and Ujjal Surya and Subarna Sarkar, received The Abhirup Bhadra Memorial “Thank You Baba-Ma” award.

Bahni could barely control herself as her son got a standing ovation. “We did not know whether he would be able to walk or talk, but it is because of him that we were there on the stage to receive an award,” she said.

Akash suffers from a central motor dysfunction from birth that affects his movement. Bahni, who was 20 when Akash was born, was determined to make him self-reliant. “I started to teach him to turn sides, crawl and gradually study,” she says. To encourage him to speak, his mother trained him with flash cards. “He first spoke when he was three…I was ecstatic,” recalls Bahni, who never took up a job to be with her son. The next target was to get him into a mainstream school.

“He was refused admission in two schools because he needed help to walk. Finally he got admission to Aditya Academy in Nagerbazar and from there he moved to Hariyana Vidya Mandir,” says Bahni.

In 2009, Akash was operated on for a fractured patella. A few months later he began to suffer from an acute backache. In great pain, he took the Class VI final exam from bed, and scored 87 per cent. In March this year he was treated for multiple fractures in the spine and was advised bed rest. But Akash is not ready to miss his first terminal examination of Class VII. “I cannot let the pain get the better of me,” he smiles. Akash’s courage stems from his parents. “At times people would point at him and his limp, but I wanted him to face that,” says father Ashis.

When Sohini was first diagnosed with a cancer that is medically termed metastatic embryonal rhabdomyosarcoma in an advanced stage, the doctors said that there was only 20 per cent chance of her recovery and the chemotherapy started. Her health had broken down; she had to be carried whenever she had to be moved. But she or her family wouldn’t give up, shuttling between Calcutta and Tata Memorial Hospital in Mumbai. But worse news waited for them.