ALAPPUZHA: PC Divya, a plus one student of Agali GHSS in Palakkad, was sitting on a chair and sobbing even after the others left the venue after completing the competition. She couldn't get up quickly with her prosthetic leg, which was about to expire. The teachers could not console Divya, who looked at her right leg and cried.

Divya came to the state science festival when she was waiting for the mercy of well-wishers for a new leg worth Rs 50,000. The competition was in the manufacture of bamboo products in the HSS category. She got an A grade in it as well. Divya lost her leg 10 years ago when she was hit by a bus while she was returning home from school. Divya saw her mother Kumari standing in a shop and got down from the school bus. While running towards her mother, a KSRTC bus ran over her feet. Divya's leg was amputated below the knee and she was in the hospital for seven months. It was Divya's grandmother Vellachi and grandfather Muthu who turned her attention to making bamboo products to get rid of her boredom.

Divya's first prosthetic leg was implanted at the age of seven, with financial help from locals. She couldn't go to school until the fourth grade. The teachers from the BRC came home and taught Divya. Divya has already replaced six artificial legs. Divya, a plus one humanities student, is taken to school and brought back by her father Chandran. The family's only source of income is Chandran, who works as a labourer.