SHASHWAT GUPTA RAY
For her students, Sukhada Marathe is not just a teacher, but also a mentor and guide who is al ways there for them. In return, they stood by her when she met with a life-threatening accident nearly seven years ago, on June 3, 2019, that injured her spine and left her paralysed from the neck down. It was this love from her stu dents, coupled with her passion for teaching, which inspired Sukhada to fulfill her dream of starting her own coaching class es, despite being bedridden for seven months. Today, she runs a chain of tutorial centres across five locations in Goa.
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Sasha Dias joined Sukhada’s tuition classes in 2017 when she was in Class X. Over time, Sukhada became much more than a teacher to her. “Then, two years later, when I was in Class XII, she met with an accident in June 2019. She was in the hospital for seven months. We were all deeply upset and prayed hard for her recovery. I remember she returned home from hospital on January 31, 2020. The very next day, I had my Science prac tical exam. Despite her trauma, she explained the lessons to me while I held my book in front of her eyes,” Sasha recalled. Now working at a groundwater consultancy firm, Sasha said Sukhada possesses extraordinary willpower. “Anybody else in her place might have given up. But Sukha da ma’am refused to give up on us or on herself,” she said. Alcina Rebello said her twins, Asher and Leonard, who play professional football, managed to perform well in their Class X board examinations despite their demanding sporting commitments, thanks to Marathe’s efforts. “My twins play professional football and are extremely passionate about the game.
Throughout Class X, they were constantly balancing studies and football. Managing ac ademics and sports is very difficult, yet they did well be cause of Sukhada’s efforts,” Rebello said. She credited Sukhada for her sons’ academic success. Recalling her journey since the near-fatal accident in 2019, Sukhada said life had been going smoothly as a teach er at Dempo Higher Secondary School of Science, Miramar, until the road accident turned everything upside down. “I suffered serious spinal cord injuries that left me par alysed from the neck down. I underwent four surgeries. I spent a month in the ICU and nearly seven months in hos pital,” Sukhada said. Yet even during her recovery, her students were never far from her thoughts. Encouraged by their constant sup port, she decided to take a leap into entrepreneurship and start her own coaching classes. “My students helped me immensely in my comeback journey.
They urged me to start teaching again because they needed me. Initially, I struggled to sit for even 30 min utes, but gradually my endurance improved. My next goal was to learn to write again,” she said. For eight months, she had almost lost her ability to speak. With the help of her psychologist, she gradually regained her speech. Around the same time, the Covid-19 pandemic began. “Online classes had started. Since I could no longer work full-time, I began conducting online coaching classes from my residence. As more students joined, I decided to revive the entrepreneur within me,” said the Assagao resident. Her tutorial centres cater to students from Std I to Std XII across all major educational boards, including CBSE, ICSE and the Goa State Board. They offer offline classroom sessions as well as personalised home and online tuition. “We are located in Assagao, Sankhali, Bicholim, Mapusa and Panjim. I have more than 50 staff members managing these centres. Now my next aim is to go global,” said the wheelchair-bound teacher.
